Always
by LostInWonderland72
Summary: 'Just wait, for wide he may roam, always, a hero comes home.' A plot is hatched to start a war that will bring the Golden Age crashing down and threaten everything the Pevensies hold dear. Once separated, each of the Pevensies must find their own way to defend their country and find their way back to each other again.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **I have recently watched the animated film of Beowulf, and in it there was a song that captured my imagination-'Always, A Hero Comes Home'. If you are going to get the full effect of this piece of writing, I would advise listening to it-the short version, not the three minute version-every decent song, it seems, must have an irritating pop cover. You can find it on YouTube-it's absolutely gorgeous and you probably won't get the full effect of this piece of writing unless you have listened to it.

This is the longest single chapter I have ever written, and I am publishing it instead of a Heartbeats chapter this week. Bits of it are also nabbed from Lord Of The Rings and 300, for anyone who's seen them.

I had intended it to be a oneshot, but if it generates enough interest, I may continue it.

So, Peter is about 21, Susan 20, Edmund 18, Lucy 16.

Please review, I would love to know what you think of this :)

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><p><em>Just wait, for wide he may roam,<br>Always, a hero comes home._

_He goes where no one has gone,  
>But always, a hero comes home.<em>

_He knows of places unknown,  
>But always, a hero comes home.<em>

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><p>He was so tired.<p>

Peter's armour had never felt heavier, nor his heart slower. The sun blazed at its highest point in the sky, but some of the women of the crowd that awaited him in the courtyard behind those double doors would still be wearing veils. Susan had wanted to. She had said that today was not a day for beauty, but her handmaidens had not allowed it. The sovereigns must show optimism, they said. Today above all days, she must turn her lovely face to the sun.

The doors were not yet open, and for now he could stand weak in the shadows with no one but his family at his back and the two soldiers ready to fling open those doors. He inspected them. One was shaking, he could tell, spear trembling in his hand. On a closer examination, he recognised the young Faun-he was the younger brother of one of the soldiers who would ride out to their dooms with him today. Tears and pride were shining in his eyes. Although he could not have been much younger than Peter-he was certainly older than Edmund-he made Peter feel so very aged. Once, he had felt that way about battles and heroic last stands. That they were the stuff of legend, and occasions of great valour, and times for displays of emotion. Now he faced them with a weary stoicism. It was his duty.

This time, this last time, it was his duty to ride to his death. A horrendous alliance of Ogres, Fell Giants and demons from the depths of hell had sprung up in the north, ravaging the small settlements there. He had heard horror stories-they all had-of the legions of brave warriors who had been cut down, of the villages razed to the ground, of halls that had once flowed with wine and mead and song and merriment hung gruesomely with the corpses of the village people, their mangled bodies strung up in the rafters for some poor merchant or messenger from the next village to find as the sun rose on the little blood-soaked town.

They had sent for help from Archenland, and though King Lune had promised assistance, none had come in time. They could wait no more. And so today, Peter would take the army's best and bravest and start out at noon to the northern border. They did not have enough troops. It was an awful truth that nobody had dared to utter, but Narnia's mightiest warrior and his courageous band were vastly outnumbered. They had no hope against blood-crazed hordes of vicious monsters. It was suicide, everyone knew that. But they could stand by no longer.

He watched as the young Faun quivered with anticipation and joy at waving his brother off with the High King's hand-picked band of soldiers, chosen individually for their strength, virtue and skill in battle. Suddenly, Peter wanted to fling open those doors himself, race to find the young one's brother, pull him out of rank and push him safely into his brother's arms. Not today, he wanted to tell him. You will not die today.

Too late. He was already marked for death.

"You, there."

The whole company started as his heavy voice cut through the thick silence.

"Young one. What is your name?"

The Faun looked ready to faint at being directly addressed by his King.

"F-Forbis, sire-Your Majesty."

"Your brother rides with me today, does he not?"

"Yes, Y-Your Majesty. And please, allow me to h-humbly say that it is the very greatest honour you could possibly have bestowed upon our f-family, Your Majesty."

"Mm..."

Peter wanted to cry. Feeling reckless and slightly whimsical and not at all sensible, he extended a further dull reply.

"Yes. I am truly sorry, Forbis."

"Your Majesty?"

He looked confused, but Peter did not offer anything more. He fingered the ancient, golden lions-head medallion that hung around his neck, the symbol of the Narnian monarchy. If he should die, Lucy would keep it. His sword Rhindon would be Edmund's, if they didn't bury it with him, and his crown, Susan's.

He turned to look at his family. Their faces were like death. There was Lucy, clutching his helmet to her chest. The tears had already started, despite the promises in their last tender moments the previous night that today there would be no crying. Edmund stared at his feet, face ghostly pale, holding Rhindon in an iron grip while it glittered naked in the small light. And Susan, face impassive but for the despair in her eyes, carried his shield with the scarlet lion blazed across it.

Abruptly, he wanted to say something-anything-to comfort them, that might lift the grief from their hearts. Even though they had promised last night that today there would be no emotion-today they would dress properly and stand properly and bid farewell in a dignified manner as befitted Kings and Queens. They had held each other and wept bitterly, and let the glow of love for one another shine through their skin, pressing their hearts together. But in the morning, they all rose coldly from Peter's bed with the faces of monarchs. Now he longed to see them smile so much that it hurt, wanted them to look at him with joy just one last time.

He opened his mouth, but then the horns sounded, long and low and mournful and not at all glorious as they had been at the start of the last campaign, when he had ridden out side by side with his brother. Edmund was not riding to his death today, and for that Peter was eternally grateful. It had been agreed that he would stay at Cair Paravel and wait for Lune's reinforcements, then lead a second attack. He had fought tooth and nail to be allowed to come with him, and in the end Peter had simply commanded him to stay behind. Defying him would be treason. Peter would not lead his little brother on a doomed march to certain death. Perhaps that was selfish-he was leading many other brothers to their dooms-but it would also deprive Narnia of both her Kings, and their sisters of both their brothers.

The doors were opened smoothly, and sunlight poured over their faces. They stepped out onto the top of the palace steps and the crowd bowed to them in one rippling wave, but no one applauded or cheered, not today. The people murmured in low voices and a sort of quiet hum rose through the clear cold of the day as the sun blinded them, glinting off the white marble of the castle. There were muffled sobs from women and the female creatures-mothers, daughters, sisters, sweethearts. Some just sympathetic souls whose hearts were made heavy with watching Narnia's best go out to die. The males looked on gravely. Some thought their King foolish for this campaign. Others lauded him as the mightiest of heroes and the bravest of men to stare into Death's face.

Peter shut his eyes and closed everything out. The crowd, the sun, the soldiers waiting to die in his service, even his family who now were lining up diagonally to the crowd at the top of the steps to see him off publicly. All he could hear was his own breathing. All he felt was the rhythm of his own heartbeat.

He opened his eyes again, and without allowing himself to think, reached up and removed his bright gold crown. It glinted in the cold sunlight as the crowd watched, a sea of wide eyes. It had been eight years since that crown had first been set upon his head. He was used to being watched. He took it to where Mr. Tumnus was waiting with a velvet cushion and laid it down. Mr. Tumnus looked up at him mournfully, giving a little bow.

"Aslan's blessings, sire. May the Lion be with you."

He nodded once and forced a tight smile of gratitude, then crossed quickly to Lucy. She looked up at him slowly through her wet eyelashes, and another few tears chased down her face. She raised his helmet slightly from where it was clutched against her chest, as if wrenching it from herself physically, but before she could move further he lifted the golden chain with the ancient lion medallion over his head and laid it gently around her neck. He bent down a little to speak to her privately, words low and fierce.

"You are our light, Lulu. Never stop shining, understand, little sister?"

She bit her lip ferociously against the sobs that clawed at her throat and nodded, hot rivers coursing down her cheeks. She rose onto her tiptoes and put her free hand on the back of his neck, drawing his face down a little so that she could kiss his cheek firmly. Her tears wetted his jaw. She ached to close the yawning distance between their bodies, to press close to him and feel utterly safe as she had done last night, when he'd cradled her in his arms and whispered sweet loving things into her ear. But she did not. She was a Queen.

Instead, she handed him his silver helmet unsteadily and he tucked it under his arm. She gathered herself and looked into her brother's eyes, face twisting with the effort of keeping her voice even. The formalities came mechanically. They had already said their farewells.

"Goodbye, my lord."

She gave a little dip, and refused to look back up at him. He watched her sorrowfully for a moment longer, burning her visage into his memory, and then dropped a kiss on her forehead.

"Goodbye, Queen Lucy."

He stepped towards Edmund, and this time it was he who moved swiftly. Before Peter could blink, Edmund was down on one knee, head bowed, offering up Rhindon flat across his palms. The light danced across the blade as Edmund's hands shook. They had been all day, throughout the morning when he had called for Peter's armour and insisted on doing it all himself, waving off the assistance of valets and pages. It had taken almost twice as long as it normally would to fully armour him, but it was worth it for every tender touch of Edmund's, as he laced up ties and snapped down clasps, running his fingers over them again and again as if to reassure himself that Peter's armour would hold true when Edmund himself could not be there to protect him.

Peter lifted Rhindon gently, but did not sheath it. He swallowed hard as Edmund rose and fixed him with a deep, dark gaze.

"Eddie, if I die-"

"Don't."

Edmund did not want to hear this. He did not even want to touch the contemplation that Peter might not return, and he wanted least of all to hear it from Peter's own lips. Peter felt his chest tighten with guilt at the pain he was causing his little brother, but he had to hear it.

"_Edmund._ If this sword is returned laid across my legs, and I hold it with cold hands, it will be yours to bear. I know you will do me proud, little brother."

Edmund surprised him by swooping forwards to kiss his cheek as Lucy had done, and as he did Peter caught a flash of tears in his eyes. For a stranger to Narnia, it would have seemed odd that the men kissed each other, but they were Kings and brothers before that. Peter sheathed Rhindon with a hiss of metal and a sharp clang as Edmund stepped back and bowed slightly, hand over his heart.

"Farewell, my lord."

Peter pressed a last kiss to Edmund's forehead as he had done Lucy, and suddenly wished selfishly that he could take Edmund with him. His little brother who would have followed him to the ends of the earth, if he'd but asked.

"Farewell, King Edmund."

He moved over to Susan, his final goodbye. Her maids had painted her face today, and this was the first time he had seen her make-up sit cold and unnatural on her beautiful features. She had been the most accepting of his fate. While the younger two had wept and raged and refused to believe that this march would kill him, insisting that there was hope, Susan had approached the situation with her ever-logical mind and had seen, as he had, that there had never been any hope. And with that hopelessness came a quiet despair.

He held out his free arm and she strapped his shield to it briskly, trying not to think of how she had sobbed in those arms for hours after they had coaxed the younger two off to sleep. When she finished, she stepped back and fixed him with a level gaze. Both knew what would happen next. Either he would ride out and by some miracle survive the bloody onslaught, defeating the hellish beasts, or-most likely-he would be slain, far away and alone in the northern wilds. Victory or death. There would be no option of surrender. She lifted her chin and tried to speak bravely, glancing at the shining shield.

"Return with it, Peter...or on it."

He nodded gravely, and she kept her head high as her eye make-up smudged and a black-tinted tear split her white cheek. She went up on her toes and ghosted a lingering kiss over his skin, before drawing back and looking at him sorrowfully. He drew in a deep breath to clear the haze of grief from his head, and spoke formalities.

"Susie, you will reign as the highest monarch in my absence. And if I do not return alive, then my crown will pass to you, and you will reign as the High Queen. Bear it well. Aslan's blessings and his guidance on you, little sister."

She dropped into an elegant curtsey.

"Farewell, my lord."

He moved to kiss her forehead as he had done the younger two, inhaling the sweet scent of her hair.

"Farewell, Queen Susan."

He turned away before he could run back to them and gather them all into his arms, and tell them not to worry, and to be happy, and that he loves them so very much, and a million other things that he should have said. He strode down the steps to where a valet was waiting with his mighty white stallion and swung himself up into the saddle. He placed his helmet over his head, pushing up the visor so that he could turn to look at his family one last time, holding them in his heart for the long, gruelling months to come, and possibly a slow and painful death at the end of it all. Then he wheeled his horse around and clattered thunderously across the courtyard, out of the castle gates. As he left, part of his soul tore out and stayed with them at the top of the marble steps where they watched him go.

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><p><em>He goes, and comes back alone,<br>Always, a hero comes home._

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><p><strong>AN:** I hope you enjoyed it! Obviously, Peter survives-I may continue the story if enough interest is generated. Please review!


	2. Chapter 2

**IMPORTANT AUTHOR'S NOTE: **I am continuing this story into my first proper long fic, with an actual plot. I have never done this before. The previous chapter was probably the piece of writing that I like best of my own work, and I don't wish to spoil it for anyone. Please, if this isn't working as a multi-chapter thing, tell me and I'll change it back. I am very wary of not coming up to standard with this.

Also, hugs if anyone got the 300 reference in the last chapter ;)

Thank you to all those who reviewed the last chapter: WillowDryad, Belle of Books, MCH, BerunaWarrior, SavedByGrace82514, Abject Tears, LuvNarnia, AlwaysABrandNewDay and OldFashionedGirl95-and also anyone who alerted it or put it in their favourites.

Again, if this doesn't work, please tell me. Reviews are much appreciated :)

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><p>Autumn came, and with it the wild storms that tore at the eastern coast.<p>

The year was getting late, and as the weeks of Peter's absence rolled relentlessly on, the light and warmth that had once effused from the great white castle by the sea flickered weakly and then died. The empty space in the throne that stood between Susan's and Edmund's seemed a thousand miles wide. The spectacular golden crown that rested on the seat was almost an echo of the presence of he who had once sat there, and, many thought, never would again.

Susan saw no suitors now. She turned them away without even the slightest consideration, sending armies of dejected princes and lords trudging from the castle still bearing their rich gifts. She rose on the morning after Peter's departure and hid her beauty from the world behind a thin, pearl gray veil without which she would not be seen outside of the monarchs' private quarters.

"_Are you sure, Susan?"_

_Lucy stood at her sister's shoulder, gazing at her lovely reflection in the vanity mirror in Susan's chamber. A pool of soft, translucent cloth lay on her table-top. _

"_Men have fought one another over my beauty. And now, considering what Peter has gone to fight, I can think of no reason less worthy. I will not entertain the prospect of marriage while he is away."_

_Susan crushed the thought that she was really starting mourning early. Seeing Lucy's face drop and begin to crumple at the mention of their eldest brother, she painted on a bright smile._

"_Better not tempt them, hm? It's hardly fair."_

_Lucy gave a thick, wet chuckle of agreement._

"_You're right, of course, Su."_

_The small joy faded from her eyes, and she bit her lip, suddenly anxious._

"_It's not right to advertise ourselves while Peter's...away. Do-Do you think that I ought to wear one, too?" _

_Susan turned on her satin-cushioned stool to face her sister properly, taking the little hands in her own long white fingers and squeezing them warmly. She tried to imagine bubbly, vivacious Lucy doing as she was doing-covering her face and concealing that radiant smile from everyone-and was struck by a sort of dull dismay. As Peter had told her before he left, Lucy was their light. She should not dim her brightness, lest everyone else should be lost in the dark._

_Susan gave her a reassuring smile, if slightly tense._

"_No, no. That wouldn't do at all. Besides-"_

_Her voice took on that humorous, teasing tone again, and she could only hope that she did not sound too false. Is this what Peter did, she wondered, when the whole world was pressing on his shoulders but he still made time to listen to their every worry and soothe their smallest fears?_

"_-you are much too young to be having suitors!" _

Edmund hurled himself viciously into military training, as ruthless with his own body as he was with the soldiers. He ate little, picking distastefully at his food, and what he did eat was often thrown up not long after, in the aftermath of a savage nightmare painted with Peter's blood that reduced him to a trembling, sobbing mess.

"_Edmund? EDMUND!"_

_Lucy raced across the moonlit floor to where her brother was knelt down on the red carpet, hunched miserably over a chamber pot. Hoarse screaming had jerked her from her sleep, and she had lain awake, terrified, unsure of whether to intervene, or to lie still and pray these terrors would pass or that Susan would come running. In the end, when Peter's name had ripped through the darkness and then been cut off sharply where she assumed he had woken, she could bear it no longer and had flown across the corridor to Edmund's chamber to find him heaving violently into a chamber pot in a quivering heap on the floor, where he had tumbled out of bed._

"_Oh, Ed..."_

_She was rather at a loss, then. This was unfamiliar territory. She was the youngest sibling, and there was always someone older to sort things out. So she did the only thing that had made sense to her at the time-she knelt behind him, gently wrapping her arms around him and laying her head lightly one of his shoulder blades. Sweat had soaked through his nightshirt, and it dampened her own nightdress slightly, as well as the cheek pressed against his back. Far from shrinking away, she turned her face into his shoulder and pattered it with kisses, heart squeezing in painful understanding. She missed him, too._

Lucy wandered through the castle in a haze of memories. Every corner seemed haunted with his presence. His laughter was in every sunbeam. That armchair, that was where she used to curl up in his lap and read stories of Narnia before the Witch. That staircase was the one they had once tumbled down together, landing in a giggling heap at the bottom. And that balcony was where they had gone out to watch the sun set during a royal ball, and he had told her that she was more radiant than any sun.

_It was the darkest, coldest night yet. Another storm had blown in across the sea, and the wind screamed and the rain beat down on the earth. Lucy was nowhere to be found._

_Edmund went out with the Palace Guard and a devoted group of civilian volunteers and scoured the castle grounds and town for her in the lashing rain while Susan waited, working herself into hysterics, at the palace in case she found her own way home. It was almost two hours later when Edmund strode through the gates, drenched to the skin, carrying a small, soaked bundle in his arms._

_She'd been so dreadfully cold._

_He had found her in one of the palace gardens, huddled against a stone bench where he remembered that she used to sit, wrapped up in the warmth of Peter's cloak with his arms tight around her as they watched in wonder the fury of nature unleashed upon their little world. Her lips were blue and she spoke in gasping sobs as she clung to him, made irrational by the numbing cold and misery._

"_I want him home, Edmund! I want Peter to come home! Why won't he come home, Edmund?"_

_And he had found that he had no answer to such desperation._

_Susan burst into tears of thankfulness when they arrived back, then had proceeded to scold Lucy for twenty minutes as Edmund rubbed her down with the fluffiest towels in the castle, warmed by the maids for their beloved Valiant Queen on her return. Both could tell that Susan had no real anger. She poured out her anxiety in sharp words about the necessity of looking after yourself and valuing your own safety, and when she could find nothing more to say, she pulled them both close to her, ignoring how the chill of their skins spiked into her own flesh. They were safe, for now._

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><p>"We must go!"<p>

Edmund slammed a fist down onto the wooden table, and the assembled generals flinched.

"What, are you all cowards? Archenland has left things too late. We cannot sit here and wait for them while my brother and his soldiers die! We must take the remainder of the army to assist him!"

The war council room was dim, lit with gloomy candles. Darkness gathered in its corners, shying from the flickering orange light that cast the face of the Just King into harsh, severe angles and deep black shadows. The air prickled with the burning frustration of the King and the reluctance of his companions.

"Your Majesty, if, as you say, the High King's troops have gone to die, then-forgive me, Your Majesty- what is the point of condemning more good men to death? Nay, sire. We must wait for reinforcements."

Edmund glowered at the captain who had spoken up as many began to nod their heads and a low murmur of agreement rippled through the room. He wanted to scream at them, to seize their shoulders and shake them all until they realised that Peter could _die_. Did they not understand that he could be lost forever, along with the other brothers and fathers and sons and husbands he had taken with him?

"But every second we spend sitting here, discussing waiting even _longer _for Archenland to send help, is another second in which we could be sending forces to relieve those who have gone to fight and save their lives! They were heavily outnumbered, we knew from the start there would be little hope of them succeeding alone. The plan was to send reinforcements! Why are we not?"

The argument was almost identical to the one that had been fought in here last night, and the night before that. Edmund was growing steadily more desperate, shouting, threatening, pleading. They were running out of time, and the only one who really seemed to care was him.

"Your Majesty, we cannot simply charge out after the High King's troops. We all of us know the horrors that they have gone out to face, and I personally deeply commend them for such bravery. The plan was indeed to send reinforcements-bolstered by Archenland. We cannot go without their support, sire. It is quite possible that both sections of the Narnian army would be annihilated, and then Their Majesties the Queens would be left without any defences and a vulnerable country. I say that we hold out until the support arrives from Archenland."

Edmund pressed his knuckles into the wood, digging his nails into his palms. He focussed on the small spike of pain, allowing it to distract him momentarily from the pounding in his head. Suddenly, he felt immeasurably weary. Nausea twisted in his stomach. Tonight he could fight no more.

"Until the support arrives from Archenland, then. And not a moment longer."

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><p>The tent was dark, and smelled of exotic spices and distant places. Here, under cloth woven in a far south country, you could almost forget the chill and blustering winds of the northern lands in the autumn. Here was gardens of pomegranates, here was riches beyond imagination, here was dark eyed women who smiled in the shadows.<p>

"You are native to this land, then?"

The voice was heavily accented, and came from a man who sat cross-legged on a heap of richly coloured cushions. A tiger skin hung about his shoulders and a jewelled scimitar from his waist. His gold teeth glittered in the lamp-light, sharpened to wicked points. A northerner in a dark cloak sat on a rug at the man's feet. His hair was stuck to his skin in wet strands and droplets of rain slithered down his face, collecting on the end of his beak of a nose and dripping onto the floor. His face was entirely nondescript, save the bird-like hook to his nose. He was a man whose face would slip instantly from the mind.

"Yes, my lord. I was born here."

"So they will have no reason to suspect. And you will perform the task with which we have charged you?"

"Yes, my lord. In the name of Tash, I swear it."

The exotic man's teeth shone hungrily as he gave a feral grin.

"Good."

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><p><strong>AN: **And so begins my first attempt at writing something with a plot. Reviews are very welcome and appreciated :)

Again, please, if this isn't up to scratch, let me know.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** So, here is Chapter Three. The plot thickens...sort of. Review are very welcome-this is my first attempt at a long fic, so I'd love to know how I'm doing :)

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><p>The dim, cold morning light streamed through the great glass windows of the throne room at Cair Paravel. The rain had visited overnight, and instead of cleansing everything and leaving it bright and fresh in the morning, it had left the world damp and shivering. There was a chill in the stones of the castle.<p>

Today, Susan was glad of her veil. An Archenlandish man, a messenger from the court of Anvard, had come bearing word from King Lune. He was knelt in front of the dais, bowed so low that his hawkish nose almost brushed the polished marble floor that gleamed in a perfect reflection of the roof high above. She would hold off hearing his message for as long as possible. What reason had Lune to send them a messenger-man instead of soldiers? The question hung heavy in the air, over the three monarchs and their assembled courtiers. The tension could almost be tasted. Lucy fidgeted nervously in her throne, glancing twitchily from Susan to Edmund to Oreius to Tumnus and back again. Edmund glowered ahead with a face carved from stone. Susan, at least, had a thin layer of cloth behind which she could conceal her emotions.

She rubbed the golden band that rested loosely on her slender finger vigorously. It did not fit her, and rightly so, for it should not be hers to bear. It was Peter's ring, the one he wore as a symbol of High Kingship when crowns were impractical or unavailable, the one he almost never removed, the one he had given her to seal her authority while he was away. In a sudden, vivid flash she remembered the pale circle it had left around the base of his middle finger on his right hand when he had slid it off and pushed it gently onto hers. It had seemed odd, she recalled, to see the white skin on his strong, tanned hands. It was as though he could never take the ring off. The mark of the King would always be on his finger. Rubbing it had become a habit of anxiety for her, since he had left.

"Rise," she said, and the stranger did so. She could hesitate no longer. She twisted the ring in her grip. Like Peter, she told herself. Be strong like Peter. "You have our permission to speak."

The man smiled widely. "Thank you, fair Queen. Might I say what a pleasure it is to be in the famed court of Cair Paravel! Often have I looked to the north and longed to see this shining beacon of beauty and culture, and, of course-" Here he nodded at Edmund, who remained frostily impassive-"military prowess for myself."

"Well, sir," Susan replied coldly, "Now that you have seen it, perhaps you would be so good as to deliver the message you came hither charged with."

"Forgive me, Your Majesties. I am quite in awe of Aslan's own blessed city, and the Golden Monarchs anointed by him. The radiant joy of Narnia's Darling and Her Grace's closeness to the Great Lion himself is legendary among the poor folk of Archenland."

He smiled somewhat patronisingly at Lucy, who sent him a fierce scowl, never one to hide her feelings.

"As, of course, is the wisdom and mercy of Narnia's great judge, King Edmund."

Edmund's chilling glare seemingly did nothing to deter the man from pouring out useless compliments instead of the message the court was desperate to hear.

"My only regret, Your Majesty, lies with you, for I had hoped to see the extolled beauty of Narnia's Gentle Queen with my own eyes. It is said among the Archenlanders that Your Grace is truly the most beautiful woman to have walked the earth since Queen Swanwhite herself."

"Sadly, I must disappoint you, messenger. No man but my own royal brother may lay eyes on my face until the return of the High King. Now, your message, if you please."

"Certainly, Your Majesty."

Here he swept once again into a low bow as the court held its breath.

"My lord King Lune sends his greetings to Your Majesties, and to the noble lords and ladies of Cair Paravel's court. He also...regrets to inform you that he will be unable to send the military assistance requested. He feels the danger to his troops far too great, and expresses his concern that should he wish to send reinforcements, they may come to grief in the autumn storms while on the pass into Narnia. His deepest apologies, Majesties."

Edmund felt sick. His fingers locked in a white-knuckled grip on the arms of his throne as the room swung dizzyingly. His heart dropped though the floor. This man may as well have plunged a knife into his chest, pulled the rug of security from under his feet. The arrival of the help from Archenland had seemed a surety, a definite goal to be reached before he would at last be able to ride to his brother's aid. It had been a comforting certainty that had suddenly been snatched cruelly away. _He regrets to inform you that he will be unable to send the military assistance requested._ He felt a white-hot rush of fury at King Lune for abandoning Peter like this. Had they not been friends, dined together, laughed together? And now it seemed he would be content to allow Peter to be cut down and die alone in the northern wilds, fighting desperately on, awaiting reinforcements that would never come.

"Lune has betrayed us," he spat poisonously, trembling with rage and despair. "He has abandoned us when we are at our most vulnerable."

The messenger-man looked coolly up at Edmund and gave a slightly twisted grin. "If I recall Narnian history correctly, then it is not for you, sire, to call any man traitor."

Edmund's face went bone white, and he choked on his next furious accusation.

"_How_ _dare you_ speak to Edmund like that!" Lucy exploded from the far right, and for a moment she sounded so much like Peter that both her siblings snapped their heads round to look at her. Unable to hold in her emotions, Lucy burst suddenly into tears, giving shuddering, gasping sobs as Susan sat woodenly in her throne and the court stood in shocked silence.

"I-I see," said Susan weakly. "Take him to a guest room..see that he's fed and watered...The court is dismissed."

The throne room emptied gradually, and valets and footmen scurried away, none wanting to be left to attend the stranger who had brought the news that would surely mean the beloved High King's downfall. All three monarchs remained, sat numbly on the dais long after all others had left.

"Oh, Susan, Edmund!" wept Lucy into the silence, "Whatever will happen to Peter? We can't leave him like this! I can't believe that dear King Lune-we used to be such good friends-I can't believe that he'd abandon us like this!"

Susan wrenched the ring off her finger and pressed it to her chest as if it could soothe the crippling ache in her heart, glad of the veil that concealed her own tears from her younger siblings. She rose unsteadily, and held a hand out to Lucy, who slid off her throne and dragged herself over to Susan, still sobbing wretchedly. Leaning on each other, the two girls-they felt more like two girls than two Queens at that moment-departed slowly, leaving Edmund alone in the vast space. After a moment, he too rose, and staggered over to Peter's throne, collapsing to his knees before it. He looked up at the golden crown that glinted almost mockingly as it rested on the seat.

"I will not fail you," he whispered fiercely. "I will bring troops, and even if I can't, I'll come alone."

Then he hung his head and he cried.

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><p>"His Majesty King Edmund is not dining with us tonight?"<p>

Lucy pressed her lips together and glared across the table at the messenger, her eyes still a little puffy, red and raw.

"No," Susan answered carefully, once it became clear that Lucy had no intention of speaking to the man, "No, he...begs your pardon. He is not feeling fit to attend dinner with us tonight."

That, she thought dryly, was a vast understatement. He had violently rejected the prospect of attending dinner with the messenger who had brought such awful news, roaring his refusal, hurling a book across his room and narrowly missing the head of the innocent page who had brought the invitation.

"Well, then I shall drink to his speedy recovery," and the man gave a wide smile, his eyes burning into Susan, who shifted uncomfortably. She could feel his gaze crawling over the contours of her body, down the curve of her neck, while Lucy glowered solidly. There was another agonisingly awkward silence.

"Forgive us, sir," Susan began emptily, "We have neglected courtesy in our distress. What is your name?"

"I am called Galen, gracious Lady. And I must thank you for your hospitality."

"It is the custom of our castle," Susan replied mildly, and in her voice was the slightest suggestion that if it were not, he would never be welcome at their table. "Your journey was not too exhausting, I hope?"

Galen shook his head, his mouth stuffed with the bounty of Narnia. Susan and Lucy sat stiffly, their plates untouched.

"No, Your Majesty. Indeed, it was a pleasure."

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><p>"Archenland has abandoned us in our hour of need!"<p>

Edmund stood on a table in the barracks, addressing all who could be assembled from the remainder of the army.

"Our ally from ages past has betrayed us. But does that mean we should cower in the shadows? No! We are Narnians, the followers of the Lion. Are there not those here who fought at the side of my brother and I at Beruna? Were not the odds stacked just as high-nay, higher-against us then?"

A nostalgic rumble of agreement spread through the crowded room.

"And should not those newer additions to Narnia's mighty army be given the chance to prove themselves against similar odds? Or will you abandon my royal brother, your High King, to whom you all have sworn loyalty? In the name of Aslan, I charge you to go to your King's defence! Or have your honour forever besmirched by the knowledge that you have fled in the face of danger."

Edmund's chest heaved, his dark eyes lit with a determined fire, every bit a warrior and a King.

"I ride to my royal brother's aid three days from now. All those who wish to ride with me and prove themselves in battle are welcome. All those who remain behind in safety, I do name coward."

He revelled in the war-cry that shook the building, a fierce pride searing through his chest. He would ride to assist Peter, and he would bring troops and supplies and fresh weaponry. He would not let his brother down.

In the shadows, a cloaked man watched the spectacle silently, eyes glittering as he took in the soldiers who clasped each other's hands and the hands of their King, exchanging vows to go to war. His gaze narrowed glacially as he took in the flushed visage of the young man on the table, and he fingered a pouch that hung from his belt, his beak of a nose just protruding from under the hood. It would seem that he had underestimated the Just King.

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><p><strong>AN:** Thanks for reading! Reviews are very much appreciated :)


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: **After much editing, I'm still not wildly happy with this chapter. It's kind of a build up to greater events, but it's necessary for the plot. I should probably issue a warning, though-this chapter does contain a very small amount of sexual harassment later on. It's nothing too graphic or unpleasant, and there's not anything particularly rude in it, but I just thought I should give you all a heads-up. I would not be doing it if it wasn't relevant to the plot, but it will come up again later and be important.

Many thanks to anyone who has reviewed, alerted or put it on favourites, you inspire me to keep writing :)

Reviews are very welcome and much appreciated!

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><p>Peter lifted a gloved hand and swiped it across his forehead. The company had been riding all through the day, and now a huge, bloody sun sank hazily into the forested mountains and valleys to the west. An eerie fog had settled in a silent blanket over the woods, and lurked in the hollows of the tree trunks. He blew out a long, weary breath and watched it hang in the air before him. The march had been gruelling for soldiers and horses alike. A chill dampness that crawled under armour and wrapped itself around bones had taken hold of the troops, and they shivered and stamped their feet as they walked on in the cold sunset. He cast his gaze despondently around the woodland. It was as though they had been riding through it forever. That clear morning when he had left Cair Paravel seemed worlds away.<p>

He did not think that anyone really had the right to love as much as he loved his three younger siblings, but love them he did, so fiercely and completely that he could hardly bear this separation. Three exquisitely painful holes bored into his heart, where Lucy's bell-like laughter and Susan's soothing touch and Edmund's dark-eyed smile should have been. He always knew that he would be the first to die.

Abruptly, his attention was snatched away from his own melancholy by something golden and glittering, half-buried in the dirt at his horse's feet. He squinted down at it. Perhaps he was seeing things, it wouldn't be the first time-but he knew what delirium felt like, and this was not it. There it was again, glinting in the evening sunlight as he shifted to see it better. He swung off his horse and landed heavily, crouching down and brushing at the earth with his fingers. A ratty strip of material lay buried in the mud that looked as though it may once have been a deep, rich purple. The gold stitching on it shone up at him. He pulled at it, and a whole length of the tattered cloth soon emerged in the shape of a long, thin triangle. Through the filth a golden eagle could be made out, screeching.

"Your Majesty?"

Peter rose, and showed his discovery to the officer who had spoken, stony-faced. The ruddy little Faun turned white under his beard and trotted away, beginning to bark orders.

"Split up into search parties, the lot of you! Scour this whole area-I want no stone left unturned! We're looking for anything suspicious, any signs of a camp or a skirmish..."

Peter blocked his voice out, staring hard at the battered and bloodied cloth in his hands.

It was the standard of Archenland.

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><p>The dying firelight bathed the monarchs' private sitting room in its glow, highlighting everything in orange and gold. Susan drifted over to a heavily cushioned armchair and dropped into it, fixing an unseeing gaze on the dancing flames. The fire muttered and spat, but she paid it no heed. Its warmth washed welcome over her bare face. The veil had been suffocating today. She burrowed deeper into the cushions, pulling her chosen night attire close around her. It was an old, almost threadbare shirt of Peter's that she had appropriated from the bottom of a drawer in his chamber after he had left, chosen because it smelled like him.<p>

She had been sitting up for hours with Lucy, stroking her hair, singing her lullabies, wiping away her tears one by one, praying with her. When she had at last fallen asleep, Susan had steeled herself for dealing with Edmund, but had to her surprise found the empty vial that usually contained his sleeping draught lying cracked on the floor beside his bed and he himself sprawled untidily on the duvet, one pale hand dangling towards the floor and cracked vial. Disconcerted, she had tucked his sheets around him and righted the glass before kissing him goodnight and blowing out the last candle.

And now came her time to be young, or it would be, if Peter were here. Putting Edmund and Lucy to bed was a habit none of them had ever quite been able to lose, no matter how old they got. And after they were tucked up, she and Peter would go back down to the sitting room and curl up in this armchair together, and just for an hour or two she would be the youngest sibling, his attention solely on her. She closed her eyes, and let herself slip back into the memories. Peter's arms, warm and strong. His breathing and his heartbeat and the heat of his skin. Their sleepy, murmured conversations and the sense of utter security. Despite the flames, their chair felt cold and empty without her big brother.

A small creak broke the silence behind her, and she whipped around, staring wide eyed about the room. The Archenlandish messenger, Galen, was stood calmly on the stairs that led up to the royal bedchambers, regarding her as a starving man might regard a feast.

"So it is true...the beauty of Susan the Gentle is indeed beyond description."

She stood quickly and turned her back to him, glaring into the fire, tears fogging her vision as she realised that her vow was forcibly broken. He had looked upon her face. She had seen the lust in his eyes.

"What are you doing here?" she spoke sharply. "These are private quarters."

"Forgive me, Your Majesty. I was looking for you and your siblings to bid you a good night. I was...unaware that this wing was out of bounds."

"What about the guards? How did you get past them?"

"Guards, Your Majesty? What guards?"

His tone was ominously smooth and mocking.

"Do you mean the toy soldiers who were stood outside of the door? I offered them a small tipple in kindness, for I am sure their night shift is long. It would seem that they cannot hold their drink."

Terror gripped her. She was suddenly horribly aware of how vulnerable and exposed she was. If she screamed, there was no guarantee anyone would hear her. The next set of guards were a corridor away. She could feel him getting closer to her. The skin on her back prickled.

"It seems a pity, Your Majesty, that no man save King Edmund may view your loveliness until High King Peter returns. I would call it almost selfish, to deny a man the pleasure of seeing your face."

"You forget your place, Galen," she snapped.

"What if he never returns? That will certainly be the outcome, my lady. Is it worth spending your whole life in mourning, wearing that veil for the death of one man? Will you die a virgin? I hardly think that he is worth such a sacrifice."

She was suddenly furious. This insolent man knew nothing of her brother, of his glory and nobility and Magnificence. How dare he come to her, and voice her own fears and insecurities so boldly? Empty, blustering threats mixed with heartfelt promises poured off her tongue.

"Silence! If you ever disrespect me or my brother in that way again, I shall have you clapped in irons and flogged until you cannot stand! If Peter is returned cold on his shield, then I shall wear that veil all the days of my life, as befits a lady in mourning. I'll forswear suitors and be wedded to my throne as High Queen, and the only man who may lay eyes on my face will be my own brother Edmund until my beauty withers and fades and I may join Peter in the royal vault."

He was uncomfortably close now, stood against her back, his body pressing into hers. Her mouth was as dry as if it had been filled with dust. She bit down hard on her lip, her rage cooled by fear.

"Out there, on your great throne, with your handmaidens and ladies-in-waiting and finery, you may think yourself a Queen. But here...alone in this room with me...you are merely a woman. Tell me, Susan the Gentle, have you ever been with a man?"

One of his hands gripped her hip, claw-like. The other moved up to her shoulder, gently pulling her long, dark hair back over it, sliding Peter's loose shirt down her upper arm to reveal the creamy skin with unwelcome sensuality. She could feel his breath slithering over her flesh. He lowered his mouth and mashed a hungry, bruising kiss to the soft skin at the base of her neck. She gritted her teeth, determined to show neither fear nor distress. She would not satisfy him.

"Show me your face again." His voice was low and rough with desire.

She did not move.

"Show me your face!"

He grabbed her chin and wrenched her head around, but with one fluid movement she snatched a long, thin dagger from behind an ornament on the mantelpiece and twisted it in her hand so that the needle-sharp point dug into his ribs. It gleamed between their bodies.

"Unhand me," she snarled. Peter or Edmund, or even Lucy, would have killed him without a second thought for such an advance on her person. But to send a dead messenger back to Anvard was to declare them enemies, and Narnia could not afford another war. His hands dropped reluctantly and he stepped back.

"You will yield to me eventually. I will possess you!"

He turned and strode bitterly from the room.

Her face flushed hot in shame and anger as she rubbed at her neck, still gripping the dagger tightly. Her body felt polluted, violated. Her legs gave out suddenly, and she dropped down onto the rug, trembling. A small sob forced its way up her throat. An alarming thought rose in her mind and she pushed away her own self-pity determinedly, scrubbing at her eyes. She got up again quickly, dashing up the staircase towards Lucy and Edmund's chambers. She flung Lucy's door open, but her little sister seemed unharmed, sleeping with a small frown creasing her brow. Soothed a little, Susan groped in the darkness until she found a candle and lit it, scattering the black shadows. She padded closer to Lucy's bed, and smiled tearfully when she noticed that a stuffed lion toy was wrapped tightly in her little sister's arms. It had been a present made for her by Mrs Beaver, following their coronation. Lucy had long since started insisting that she was too old for such things, and that she kept them only for nostalgia's sake, but on nights like this, when hope and happiness seemed so distant, they gave her a small measure of comfort.

She crossed to Edmund's chamber, and he too appeared safe. More than safe, he seemed to be sleeping peacefully for the first time since Peter had left. Susan brought her candle over to sit by him, taking his hand in her own. The iciness of his skin shocked her, and she dropped it immediately, a deep concern igniting low in her stomach. She scrutinised him. His breaths were slow and shallow, and close up it became clear that his sleep was not peaceful at all, but thick and dead. His face was twisted a little as though in pain, and his other hand was welded to the place on his body where she knew if she lifted his nightshirt she would find the oldest of his battle scars.

She set to work, and soon there were three extra blankets piled on his bed and a fire crackling merrily in the grate, but Edmund's body remained as cold as stone. She was reminded sickeningly of the time Peter had carried him in, frozen, after he had been caught in a snow storm, four years ago now. He had been like ice to touch then, too. She and Peter both had shed their outer layers of clothing and wrapped themselves around him, giving him their own body heat, and Lucy, little as she had been at that time, had snuggled in too. With this in mind, Susan slipped under the blankets with her little brother and pulled him close to her, shivering. Slowly, frighteningly slowly, he began to warm up. She fell into a restless sleep, cradling him close.

Susan was woken the following morning with the sun in her eyes by a piercing shriek. She untangled herself from Edmund, who gave a low groan, and staggered out of bed, hurrying downstairs to the source of the commotion. After a few inquiries, she found that a young Otter handmaiden had discovered two guards, a Dwarf and a Satyr, lying drugged in a dark alcove.

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><p><strong>AN:** Hmm, Galen's up to no good on several fronts. Please review!


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N:** Thank you very much to everyone who reviewed :D I'm going away for a while tomorrow, so the next update may be slightly late. Anyway, onto this chapter, in which there are some dramatic happenings, and my other main OC is introduced. I'm rather fond of him :) Oh, and I have another warning about the very end of this chapter. The last paragraph contains an unpleasant mental image. It's kind of bloody. Don't say I didn't warn you. Because I did. Just then :)

Please, please review-I'd love to know your opinion!

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><p>Never before had the distance between Cair Paravel and the northern wilds seemed so far. Edmund surveyed the yellowing maps, calculations and estimations of time and morale and supplies whirling around in his head. The march would be far longer than he would have liked.<p>

"We're going to need horses," he sighed, "and lots of them."

He shivered and pulled his cloak tight around him as a fire blazed in the grate nearby. His face was an unhealthy gray, even in the warm firelight. One of the Faun captains, a fellow named Phraxus, looked up from his columns of supply figures, brow creased in concern.

"Are you alright, Your Majesty? Only, it's boiling in here, and you still seem to be finding it cold."

"I'm fine, Phraxus," he snapped. "It's probably just a draft or something."

The Faun frowned, but nodded reluctantly and returned to his figures. He knew better than to push the King, that was best left to his family.

"Here, let me see that map again. Which route did I say we were taking through the woods?"

He stood unsteadily, now watched by almost all present with gazes dark with worry. Leaning heavily on the table, he began to study the map, blinking hard as the lines seemed to shift and rearrange themselves. The more he tried to pin them down, the more persistently they evaded him. His vision spun alarmingly, but he clenched his teeth through the sudden nausea and focussed with determination on the map.

"Which route?" he ground out roughly.

Phraxus exchanged uncertain looks with some of the other soldiers, and then came to stand at Edmund's side, pointing along a line on the aged paper.

"We said that we would follow the route King Peter took as far as this ridge, then travel west until we reached-Look, Your Majesty, are you sure you're all right?"

"Fine! Don't-don't fuss so, I'm not some kind of-"

His voice trailed off suddenly. Black spots began to eat at his vision. His balance abandoned him, he staggered slightly and then collapsed heavily on the floor, the icy room fading into darkness.

"King Edmund!"

Phraxus cried out in alarm, and the whole room burst into a flurry of activity to help their monarch.

"Fetch the healers!"

"Some of us must try to get him up to bed-"

"Fetch the Queens!"

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><p>"What happened?" Susan asked tersely as she strode down the corridor in the direction of Edmund's bedchamber, the Badger attendant scurrying along at her heels.<p>

"We're not exactly sure, Your Majesty," she replied breathlessly. "Apparently, he just collapsed during a war council. Queen Lucy is looking at him now."

"Well, he's not been eating properly since Peter left..."

"But that's just it, Your Majesty. The physicians don't think that lack of food is the problem. He's very, very cold, and his skin has turned grayish. He hasn't moved since they brought him to bed. They...they also said that the scar the White Witch left on him has suddenly gotten angry and inflamed, almost as if it were infected, but that would be impossible. It's funny, Your Majesty, but..."

"But what?" Susan looked at the Badger sharply, who squirmed slightly under her gaze, flushing a little.

"His skin-it's so cold and gray, it looks almost...almost like stone."

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><p>A thin, hoarse scream split the heavy hush that had settled over the search parties, followed by urgent bellows of 'Your Majesty!' and 'Fetch the King!' Peter walked briskly through the forest towards the disturbance followed swiftly by several captains and lords, to find two soldiers wrestling with a young sparrow of a boy, a grubby bag of bones who was swinging a short knife wildly around and shrieking like a banshee, his face frozen with sheer terror. Emblazoned on his tattered tunic was the eagle of Archenland. The boy caught sight of the approaching party and stilled, trembling like a startled rabbit. A Satyr soldier peeled the rusted blade from his grip. He gazed up at them, eyes impossibly wide with raw, animal fear that softened slightly as he took in the Lion that reared on Peter's scarlet tunic.<p>

"Y-You're...Narnians," the boy stammered through lips numb with panic. Peter knelt in front of him, noticing with a sickening jolt that his voice had not yet broken. His hair was sandy, under the clinging dirt, and his face was dusted with freckles and white with terror. Peter was reminded vividly of Lucy for a moment, then turned his mind away, flinching from the memories of struggles long won.

"You're _Narnians_," he repeated, this time with no small amount of awe.

"That's right, lad. We're not going to hurt you," Peter did his best to smile warmly, and injected the same low, calming note into his voice that he often used with Edmund after a particularly horrific nightmare.

The boy lunged at him, and the surrounding soldiers leapt forward, but Peter lifted a hand to hold them back. For the boy had flung himself at Peter and was clinging to him with all the strength in his spindly arms, great wrenching sobs wracking his thin frame. Peter was taken aback for a moment, and then with a solid clank of his armour engulfed the boy in a protective embrace. His men looked around at each other, bewildered.

"Shhh, lad. It's alright. It's alright. I've got you. Now, can you tell me your name?"

"I-I'm Rook, if it pleases you, sir," the boy replied tremulously, refusing to relinquish his grip on Peter.

"Rook. Well, Rook, can you tell me what you were doing here, and why you were hiding?"

Sniffing, the boy lifted his face from Peter's shoulder, twin white lines tracing down his cheeks where his tears had washed away the grime. He looked shyly up at him.

"I'm a page, sir, in Archenland's army. We came to help your King Peter-we were going to go to Cair Paravel, but a man met us in the first town we got to, Far-something- and told us to carry on up north. I didn't like him. He had this horrible hooked nose... But then when we came, w-we were attacked by men with curved swords and strange clothes, and there were so-so many of them. We were going to lose the battle, so Sir Roderick-he's my knight-gave me that knife and told me to hide."

Peter swallowed hard, panic gripping him. So Archenland had come after all. From what Rook had told him, it sounded as though they had been given a false message by a fraud at Fairfield, the first Narnian town after the pass from Archenland. His thoughts leapt instantly to Cair Paravel and his family, fear worming into his heart. He tried to keep smiling reassuringly for Rook's benefit, but now it felt as though his face was being stretched into an unfamiliar shape.

"Do you think you could show us where the battle was, Rook?"

"I'm not sure, sir. I left long before it was done. I wanted to stay, but Sir Roderick said that I had to go."

"Your Sir Roderick sounds like a good man."

"He is-was-I don't know if he's still alive, sir." The boy let out another little sob.

A memory slammed suddenly into Peter, dredged up from the depths of his mind. It had been their third trip to Anvard-

"_King Peter? What a pleasure! I've been desperate to meet you ever since I heard you were visiting. Really, sire, it is an absolute honour."_

_Peter had turned to see a stocky young man with a wild mop of chocolate curls and a face-splitting grin. He grabbed Peter's hand in both of his and began pumping it enthusiastically._

"_Honestly, Your Majesty, I am astounded. High King Peter, as I live and breathe! Oh, do tell me-I've been dreadfully curious-how exactly did you and King Edmund defeat that pack of werewolves in the Shuddering Woods? I've heard all the stories, they seem thrilling, but I'd love to hear it from your own mouth, if Your Majesty doesn't mind-"_

"_Steady on, Roderick," King Lune had laughed, grasping the shoulders of both young men firmly, arriving just in time to rescue a rather overwhelmed Peter. "I'm sure King Peter wouldn't mind telling you that story-but perhaps at a later date. It is truly epic, but such stories are best told around a warm fire with some hot mead."_

_He winked at Peter, who smiled gratefully._

"_For now, Sir Roderick, perhaps you wouldn't mind showing the King to his guest chambers?" _

"_Of course, of course, right this way, sire-"_

But the next day Sir Roderick had been called away with a group of other knights to guard some kind of treaty signing. He had never gotten to hear the tale of Peter, Edmund and the werewolves in the Shuddering Woods, and Peter had never seen him again.

He shook himself and glanced down at Rook, who was looking up at him, wide-eyed.

"I'm sorry, Rook, it seems unlikely. Perhaps you could show us the direction from which you could hear the battle?"

Rook rubbed his nose and nodded thoughtfully. He pointed off into the forest.

"That way, I think, sir."

"Could you lead us there?"

The boy looked apprehensive, but nodded again nonetheless. He stood shakily, and Peter with him, but he did not loosen his grip on the boy's bony shoulder. They trudged off into the forest, the shadows beginning to grow and loom around them. Soon enough, a sickly rotting smell caught their noses, and many of the newer soldiers grimaced in displeasure, while veterans shot each other nervous, knowing glances.

"What in the Lion's Name could that be?"

The Faun officer who had marshalled the search earlier trotted up behind Peter and handed him a blanket for Rook's shoulders.

"Here, Your Majesty. For the boy."

Peter nodded his thanks, and wrapped him in the blanket, never once slowing his stride.

" 'Your Majesty'?" Rook looked up at him, puzzled. Peter smiled. "You're a King?"

Realisation mixed with incredulity dawned suddenly in his eyes, and he gaped, his mouth hanging open. "King _Peter_? The Magnificent? The High King of Narnia?"

"That's me."

"You mean you're-as in-" Rook flushed fiercely, realising that he had thrown himself into the arms of the very king of whom he'd heard so many fantastical stories, of whom he and the other pages traded legends over lunch. "I'm sorry, Your Majesty, I didn't mean-"

"It's quite alright, Rook."

Blushing, the boy fell silent, occasionally shooting shy, awed glances at the man whose hand rested on his shoulder.

They did not have to go far to discover the source of the smell.

The ghostly light lit the tree dimly. Its branches were naked and leafless, but by no means bare. Twisted forms seemed to hang off it or were lumped onto it, pinned to it by long spears. The troops squinted through the darkness at them, trying to see what they could be. A choked gasp sounded as one realised, followed by other horrified murmurs, curses and prayers. Peter's face drained of colour and he snatched at Rook, grabbing the boy and clapping a hand firmly over his eyes. But it was too late, he had already seen. He gave a strangled cry and began to shake as warm liquid trickled down his leg. Peter drew him close, letting him bury his face in his side, giving terrified little whimpers. A substantial number of soldiers, a few battalions at least, had been slain mercilessly, their bodies strung grotesquely in this ancient tree, its bark now dark and red with blood. Every one of them bore the eagle of Archenland.

Peter gave a low, vicious growl. There was only one culture he knew of that disgraced their fallen enemies in this way.

"Calormenes."

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><p><strong>AN:** Thanks for reading. Please review, I'd love to know what you thought :)


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: **I apologise if this is a bit late-I was on holiday for a week with no internet! So, Rook is further introduced, and some conclusions are reached regarding Edmund's condition. Thank you to everyone who has reviewed so far :)

I hope you enjoy it and if you fancy leaving a review, I'd love to know what you think :)

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><p>"How are you faring, Rook?"<p>

Peter sat down beside the boy, facing a small fire. Rook smiled timidly up at him, snuggled into a nest of blankets, nursing a mug of something hot and steaming. A stoic group of soldiers had been assigned the grisly task of giving the dead a proper burial, but the remainder had adopted Rook as their pet, cleaning him up, fussing over him and fetching him whatever he asked for.

"Much better, thank you, Your Majesty."

Peter had to bite his lip to keep himself from laughing at the comically proper voice the boy had taken on when speaking to him after discovering who he was.

"It's alright, Rook. You don't have to do that. Tell me, how old are you?"

"I've seen twelve summers, Your Majesty."

Twelve. He seemed awfully small for twelve. Susan had been twelve, when they first came into Narnia. His eyes slipped closed, face turned to the warmth of the fire.

_Where are you going?_

_To get in some practice!_

The memory burned across his eyelids. He could smell the cooked breakfast wafting to where he leant on a sun-warmed rock, the beauty of Narnia beginning to unfold for them. Susan, laughing, her dark hair left loose and wild for once, swinging her bow onto her shoulder. Edmund hurriedly devouring the rich breakfast, his face clear of a scowl for the first time in months, the sunlight illuminating his face with new maturity. Lucy, her cheeks round and rosy, giggling. He remembered how young and frightened and conflicted he'd felt, how desperate to protect his family, whatever the cost.

By Aslan, he missed them.

"Are they true, Your Majesty?"

Rook's tentative inquiry drew him back to the present.

"I think I should like you to call me Peter, Rook. I much prefer it to 'Your Majesty'."

Peter grinned confidentially at the boy, whose eyes sparkled at the privilege.

"Gosh, Your Ma- I mean, Peter, it's an honour. Thank you."

"You're quite welcome. What was it that you wanted to know if they were true?"

"The stories, Yo-sorry, Peter. I just-me and the other boys, we hear all of these amazing tales about you and your family. I was wondering if they were true."

"Depends which one you're talking about," Peter smirked.

"Well-the oldest story-is it really true that King Edmund betrayed you, and then he nearly died in the Battle of Beruna destroying the Witch's wand?"

"Yes," he answered shortly. Rook seemed to detect something in his tone that told him Peter didn't want to discuss that particular story.

"They say you've wrestled a Minotaur," Rook's voice was hushed in awe.

"I came off rather the worse for that one."

"So it isn't true?" He sounded horribly disappointed.

"I didn't say it wasn't true. I just said I didn't _win_. Don't ever try it, Rook."

He giggled gleefully, nodding. "I won't! Apparently you've never been defeated in a tournament..."

"That's not entirely true either. I have been bested, once or twice."

"They say that King Edmund carries twenty knives on his person and he can move without making a single sound."

Peter barked out a laugh. "Twenty? I'd say it's more like four. But we all carry knives, yes."

To Rook's astonishment, he flicked his wrist and suddenly a razor-sharp blade was clenched in his hand, glinting orange in the firelight.

"We never go anywhere unarmed, in case of assassination attempts and suchlike. We have them with us everywhere except our private quarters, and even there lots of them are concealed in various places."

"Wow...Is it true that Queen Susan can hit any target with a bow and arrow?"

"Yes, that one's completely true. She's a very skilled archer."

And so their discussion continued late into the night, Rook putting every rumour and legend he could think of to Peter to test their truthfulness.

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><p>A week dragged past. A week in which Edmund lay motionless and ice cold, in which Lucy grew ever more listless, in which Susan kept to safe company and took to locking her door. The mobilised army which had been ready to ride out with King Edmund and offer salvation to those who had been condemned to die lingered uncertainly, no longer sure of their path now that he had been taken ill. Mystery and rumour shrouded the condition of the King. Very few had been allowed to see him since his collapse. There were whispers of treachery and sorcery amongst the restless troops, and Captain Phraxus had three soldiers beaten for suggesting cowardice on the King's part.<p>

The autumn storms continued to relentlessly ravage the coast. A dark night when the wind pounded at the windows found Susan sat stiffly in a chair while yet another healer, brought over at great expense from Galma, examined her brother. The perplexed twist to his mouth and deep furrows in his brow told her that it would be another fruitless night. The following morning he would be paid to keep his silence and dismissed like all the others. A Dwarven physician stood near the door, watching the man critically. Mrs Beaver was seated next to her on an overly floral pouf, tutting sympathetically and periodically reaching over to pat Susan's hand. Although she knew that her maternal friend meant well, Susan rather wished she would stop. She had spent what felt like innumerable nights in the same position, watching renowned healer after magic expert after learned physician each fail to provide a cure or diagnosis. She had come to expect disappointment and a little more of her heart tore out with every wasted chance, but she would fix a smile to her face and continue the desperate fight to keep Lucy's hope and the hope of their people alive. She had already lost her own battle. It would seem that this looming winter would deprive her of both her brothers. It felt as though the thin crease of anxiety was engraved permanently between her brows. She had not seemed to lose the tightness of worry from her features since Peter had left. She blew out an exhausted sigh, leant over to card her fingers through her little brother's hair and froze.

She couldn't do it.

Her fingers would not push through his dark locks, which seemed stiff and solid when before they had been soft. She snatched her hand back and drew in a sharp gasp.

"Something wrong, dear?" Mrs Beaver looked up at her, worry in her kind face.

"His hair-it's gone stiff-like _stone-_" she muttered distractedly, horribly pale, staring hard at Edmund. His dark hair, previously the colour of night, had now lightened to a sort of charcoal grey, the same hue as his face.

"Oh, by the Mane, it has! So the rumours are true?" asked Mrs Beaver huskily.

There was a beat of tense silence. The Galmian paused in his examination to look up curiously.

"Which rumours are these?" Susan inquired, her voice dangerously quiet.

"Well," Mrs Beaver shifted uncomfortably, "they say that King Edmund is turning to stone, and that this is the Witch's revenge from beyond the grave because he changed sides and broke her wand."

"That's ridiculous," Susan spoke severely, grabbing at Peter's ring and rubbing it voraciously with the pad of her thumb, smothering her own rising fears. "The Witch is dead. Aslan killed her, Peter saw Him do it. Nobody, not even the Witch, can use their powers once they're dead."

Mrs Beaver threw her a frightened glance. "There are...old rituals. Ways of bringing people back."

Susan pursed her lips and swallowed down the icy terror that coiled in her stomach, about to give another sharp reply-

"The-the Witch?"

The Galmian healer, who had been standing somewhat awkwardly on the opposite side of Edmund's bed, listening intently to the conversation, his eyes flicking between the two, now broke in.

"The White Witch? You didn't mention anything about her-black magic, evil sorcery-oh, my nerves-nothing was mentioned about any Witch in the letter I received."

He began to fling items hurriedly into his case, muttering nervously to himself.

"So you will not complete the examination for which we paid you?" Susan asked coldly.

"You didn't mention anything about black magic, which I'm sure is the problem here. He's turning to stone. I'm sorry," he replied carelessly, not sounding at all sorry, "but there's no cure for it. Nothing to be done, nothing to be done. You'll have to sit and wait it out. I doubt he's feeling anything, if that's consolation to you."

"Please, just leave_,_" she managed, voice catching tearfully which removed the sting from her words. Mrs Beaver patted her hand frantically.

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><p>On her way down to the library later that night, Susan encountered a hunched shadow, slumped against the wall of a seldom used corridor. She had been selecting quiet passages and dusty halls, preferring them tonight to the bustle of the main corridors. This one in particular led to some disused studies. She crept closer, beginning to recognise the shape.<p>

"Lucy?"

There was a muffled sigh, but no reply. Abandoning caution, Susan stepped quickly down the corridor to where her younger sister was curled up against the wall wrapped in an old blanket.

"Lucy, darling? Are you alright?"

Susan crouched next to her, and realised that she was, in fact, asleep. She was hunched over uncomfortably, tear tracks dry on her cheeks, facing the wall at the end of the corridor. Susan turned to look and her breath caught. There was a vast painting hung there, one she had not seen for many years. It was a skilful portrait of Peter, painted soon after they had been crowned. It was entitled _Wolfs-bane _and was a rather fanciful portrayal of Peter's victory over Maugrim, the leader of the Witch's wolves. It showed Peter standing majestically over the prone form of Maugrim, driving Rhindon into his heart. As anyone who had been present, as Susan had, knew, this was not at all how the battle had happened. There had been nothing majestic about Peter's first kill. It had been confused and sweaty and messy, and at no point did he stand victoriously over the body of Maugrim. It was for this reason that Peter did not like it, and this reason that it was hung in a largely deserted corridor. Yet the artist had somehow managed to capture something of the essence of Peter, or at least, of the man the boy in the painting would become, and it was probably for this that Lucy had chosen it to remember him by.

With fresh tears in her eyes, Susan looked back at Lucy, to notice that she clutched some crumpled pieces of parchment in her hands. Intrigued, she gently eased them out of Lucy's iron grip and smoothed them out, beginning to scan through what was written on the first.

_Dearest Peter,_

_It has now been over a month since you left. We miss you dreadfully. Sometimes I look out at the stars and wonder whether you are looking at them too. Do you remember how we used to lie on the beach at night in summer, and you told me the stories behind all of the constellations? I have never forgotten them.  
>I am terribly afraid for Edmund. There are all sorts of horrible rumours going round because we can't let most of the court and castle staff see him until we know what's wrong. Susan has a different healer in practically every night, but none of them have been able to help him at all. I can't escape the feeling that somehow, if you were to return, everything would be put right, but I can't imagine how. I suppose I am being silly.<em>

There were lines and lines of it, this letter Lucy would never send. Susan leafed through the other parchments and found them all the same, dated progressively earlier, right back to the week Peter had left. Their messenger birds were kept in during the autumn storms, so Peter would never read all these words, all this love and news and concern.

_I'm writing these letters to no one, really, because nobody knows exactly where you are and everyone says that you will never come back. I find myself clinging to the hope that you will, just as I cling to the hope that Ed will get well again, even though now, that seems nearly as impossible. No one knows how to cure him. I think Susan has given up hope and fights only for me now, and it breaks my heart almost as much as it breaks hers._

A small circular patch of dampness appeared on the parchment, smudging the ink slightly. A second followed with a mournful _drip_, then a third and a fourth. Susan wept hot, bitter tears, crying openly for the first time since that day in the throne room when Galen had appeared and pronounced her older brother abandoned.

_There is less to smile or laugh at in the castle now that you're gone, and there's this messenger from Archenland who seems to make Susan nervous and is always creeping around the halls. I know you would hate him. I do. I wish he would leave us alone, but he won't go and you know the Narnian rules of hospitality, we can't force him to leave, as long as he doesn't seem to be a threat. There's something not quite right about him, though.  
>All my thoughts are with you and your troops. I pray for you every night.<em>

_Love Lucy _

An image of Galen swam into her mind, along with the feel of his body pressed up to hers and his mouth on her skin. Susan shuddered, and then her eyes widened as the memory replayed in her head. Only this time, an overlooked detail presented itself to her. She could barely believe that she had missed it. That night had been the night before Edmund began to complain of the cold, presumably when his transformation had started. That had been the night that she had turned to see Galen descending the steps from the chamber where her brother slept.

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><p><strong>AN: **Thanks for reading, and please review, I'd love to know what you thought :)


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: ** Gosh, it's chapter seven already...*looks around in surprise* Anyway, onto the chapter, in which more progression is made with Edmund, and Rook and Peter have another little chat. Stick with it, things will kick off properly pretty soon.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter, I appreciate it very much. Please review, I would love to know what you think :)

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><p><em>Slash parry duck spin stab slash twist-<em>

Peter lost himself in the familiar rhythm. Adrenaline rushed in his veins. He was vaguely aware that somewhere along the way his leg had been sliced open, but there was no pain yet, just heat. Rhindon flashed as it whirled in a bloody arc and slit the Ogre's stomach, gutting it neatly. He was slightly disturbed to find that he was not remotely troubled by the gargling scream the creature emitted as it crumpled at his feet.

He had not realised that the monstrous hordes of Ogres and demons had ventured this far south. Peter and his troops had intended on relying on the element of surprise and quick, lethal night raids. They wouldn't have stood the slightest chance if they had met the entire enemy force head on in broad daylight, and yet this seemed to be precisely what they found themselves doing. They had stumbled on an enemy camp unexpectedly close to their own, and now any hopes of attacking with stealth had been dashed. They were spotted instantly, and Peter barely had time to rap out a few terse orders before the first wave of swinging maces and snapping jaws was upon them.

He spared a second to thank Aslan that the Giants had stayed in the north, and then rushed at the next Fell Beast that came charging towards him, screeching, no doubt intent on ripping his throat out with its needle sharp teeth. Once he had dispassionately dispatched it, he glanced wildly around the battlefield. Everywhere he looked it seemed that a soldier in the scarlet of Narnia was being cut down and the air was thick with the howls of the dying and the wounded. There was no other option. He would have to call a retreat.

* * *

><p>Susan and Lucy sat together in Edmund's chamber, watching a Centaur healer probe the inflamed Beruna wound carefully. It had been three days since Susan had dismissed the Galmian, three days since she had developed her suspicions about Galen. Knowing the one responsible, however, did nothing for her brother's condition, so in a last-ditch attempt she had sent out a plea across the country for a healer skilled in magical injuries. Few had come. Rumours had wormed their way out of the castle and spread across Narnia, and the name of Jadis was once again whispered in the shadows. But this young Centaur, who was now frowning pensively at Edmund's side, seemed unperturbed.<p>

Lucy turned her eyes away, face tight with the effort of keeping her tears back as the Centaur poked and prodded in the wound. His features were set in utmost concentration, and Susan watched him closely, hardly daring to be encouraged that so far, he had shown no sign of bafflement or nervousness. He grunted at something in frustration and poked harder, and Lucy turned back to observe him curiously. He suddenly snatched up a pair of tweezers and dug them into Edmund's side, and then pulled them swiftly out with something glittering grasped in them. Dropping it into a small dish, he examined it, and it was only now that fear crept into his face. He held out the dish for the two Queens to lean forward and see what was inside.

Lucy gave a little scream as her hands flew to her mouth, and Susan turned deathly pale. Cold trickled down her spine. She remembered now-she had seen a thousand shards just like it, glimmering in the new-sprung grass, eight years ago when her little brother lay similarly motionless on the battlefield that had sealed their reign. The glistening splinters of the Witch's wand had showered into the grass when Edmund had shattered it. Susan had not paid them any heed at the time; she had been desperately watching him, waiting for him to draw that first blessed breath. But one thing was certain: there had been no shard in the wound after Lucy's cordial had healed it.

"I confiscate that to the property of the Crown. Its existence is a state secret. The knowledge of it will not pass out of this room."

She gave the solemn healer and the two frightened attending nurses a look harder than flint, and they all nodded.

"Of course not, Your Majesty," the Centaur murmured.

She took a steadying breath, and grasped Lucy's hand.

"Send for the Palace Guard. I want it transferred to our most secure vault."

One of the nurses scurried to the door and slipped her head around it, exchanging low, quick words with the sentry outside.

"What will happen to Edmund now?" Lucy spoke up unexpectedly, her voice quiet and trembling.

"I know not, my Queen. It could be that the removal of the shard will halt King Edmund's transformation, but it will not reverse it. An antidote must be found, although truly, I do not know of any antidote that could solve this. But with your permission, Majesties, my colleagues and I will start work this very night."

Susan reached over Edmund's prone form and clasped the hand of the Centaur, smiling wanly.

"Thank you. I am certain you have done far more for my brother than any have yet done."

He returned her sad smile and took Lucy's proffered hand also.

"It is my duty and my honour, Majesties. It grieves me to see the King thus. If I can be of any further assistance, please do not hesitate to send for me."

A few minutes later, two stern Faun soldiers bearing the emblem of the Palace Guard marched in, carrying a wooden casket between them. The thin sliver of crystal seemed somehow to have chilled the room. It was quickly rinsed of Edmund's blood and lowered with veneration into the casket. The lid was slammed shut with a reassuringly heavy thud and a thick lock snapped closed on it. One of the Fauns presented Susan with the only key, before they lifted it and bore it down to the deepest caverns below the castle.

The young Centaur politely took his leave, followed by the nurses, allowing Susan and Lucy a moment alone with Edmund.

"Oh, Susan, do you think...?"

Lucy turned to look at her, and Susan's heart twisted to see the spark of hope that burned in her eyes. To snuff that out would be unbearable.

A harsh, decisive knock on the door interrupted Susan's reply, and Oreius, their Centaur general, far larger than the Centaur who had just left, entered.

"How fares King Edmund?"

He walked sedately to the Queens' side, gazing down at him. Susan slumped back in her chair and sighed heavily.

"We discovered the source of the problem. Someone embedded an old shard of the Witch's wand in his scar from Beruna."

"Susan had it confiscated," Lucy chipped in.

Oreius nodded slowly. "A wise decision, Queen."

Susan had known the stoic Centaur for years, but something within her still leapt with pride when he praised her. Their early months would have been a disaster without his guidance.

"May I go to bed, Su? I'm sorry, I'm just awfully tired..." Lucy yawned, and Susan smiled, squeezing her hand.

"Of course, off you go. I'll come and say goodnight soon."

Lucy leaned over to kiss Edmund's cold cheek, flashed a small smile at Oreius, then padded out of the door. The moment Lucy had closed it quietly, the smile slid off Susan's face.

"What would the worst be? If the people found out, I mean?"

Oreius gave her a level look. "Panic, Your Majesty. Sheer, blind panic. Many suffered greatly under the Witch's tyrannical reign. If there was even a hint that some of her old power remained, there would be chaos."

"Do you think that it is her?"

Susan's question was hushed, fearful of his answer. He seemed to contemplate this for a while.

"No," he said finally. "No, I do not believe that she is using her power from beyond the grave, or that she has somehow come back to life. Aslan slew her Himself. I believe that the magic that was in her tools remains, and that is all. Which, of course, leaves the question of who is using them."

There was silence for a heartbeat.

"You suspect someone."

"Yes," she whispered, twisting Peter's ring around her finger.

* * *

><p>Peter turned over in his bedroll, grunting in annoyance. Having tried every position he could think of, he could not persuade himself comfortably to sleep. The ragged remains of his troops had fled back into the forest that afternoon, and had now pitched camp in the most sheltered place they could find. It was a far smaller camp than the one that had been made the previous night. Guilt churned in his stomach as his thoughts turned to the bodies of those who had been lost in the clash earlier today. Ordinarily, the bodies of soldiers who were lost in a battle so far from home were blessed, gathered onto a pyre and burned with their heads pointing to the east in the traditional Narnian manner. But as they had given up the battlefield to the enemy, there would be no peaceful departure for the dead. Peter shuddered to think of what the Ogres might be doing with the corpses.<p>

Before he could follow this unpleasant train of thought, a tiny, muffled sob sounded from somewhere on his right, where Rook was sleeping. He had, thankfully, kept away from the battle. Peter turned over to look at the boy, and saw him huddled beneath his blanket, trembling, a tuft of sandy, slightly red hair poking out.

"Rook?" he asked, keeping his voice soft and low. "Are you alright?"

Rook turned over to look at him in surprise, swiping tears from his eyes. He blinked owlishly.

"I just...I miss my mother and father, Your Majesty, and Rollo. I'm sorry, I know it's weak."

"Peter. I shall go insane if no one calls me by my proper name. And it isn't weak, not at all. Who is Rollo?"

"My little brother, Your-Peter. He helps my father in the smithy-well, he tries. He takes out water and stuff. He's only small." A little sniffle. "I miss him so much."

"I miss mine, too."

"King Edmund?"

"Yes."

"...Forgive me, Your Majesty-"

"Peter."

"-Peter, but it seems odd to think that King Edmund the Just-_the _King Edmund-is your little brother, just like Rollo is my little brother."

Peter gave a low, rumbling chuckle, deep in his chest.

"We are a family too, Rook, like any other."

"Peter?"

"Yes?"

"What happened to your parents? In all the stories about your family, we don't ever hear anything about your parents. And apparently you were only a bit older than me when you were crowned..."

"I-I don't know, Rook. I don't really remember my parents. I don't even know if we had any. I've been looking after my siblings for as long as I can remember. But why don't you tell me about your family?"

In the light of the glowing embers of the fire, Peter could just about see Rook's pleased smile.

"We own a little smithy in the countryside outside of Anvard. Ma used to be a lady-she met King Lune once-but then she gave it up and married Dad. That's probably why they let me join the army so easily, though, because of Ma's bloodline. She didn't really want me to, but Dad was so proud. He's got Rollo to take over the business, after all. One day I'll be a squire, and maybe even a knight after that," he said happily.

"How would you like to be my page, Rook? Just for the rest of this campaign, until we can get you back to Archenland. A page needs a knight to be a page. I could teach you a few things, if you'd like. Help you get a step ahead of the others."

"Oh, _would _you, sir?" Rook burst out, apparently forgetting to call him 'Peter' in his excitement. "That would be such a privilege! The highest honour-I'd love to, if you'll have me!"

"Of course, but only if you get some sleep. You'll be no use to me if you can't keep your eyes open tomorrow."

"Yes, right away, sir!"

Peter held back more chuckles as he watched Rook busily settle himself down and then clench his eyes tight shut, a huge grin on his face. At least it would be easier to keep an eye on him this way.

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><p><strong>AN:** Rook's such a sweetie :) Thanks for reading. Please review, I'd like to know what you thought!


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: **Well, here we are at Chapter 8! Things are going to get really nasty, now. There's an argument, Susan finds some resolve, some questions are hopefully answered, and Galen drops in again. Things should get generally more exciting from here on out, as the plot starts to kick off. Hopefully I am doing my first chapter justice with this extension. Thank you very much to all of my wonderful reviewers :)

Please review, I'd love to know what you think!

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><p>Cair Paravel slept. Thick darkness drifted and curled through the corridors. The wind began a mournful, whistling song in the loneliness of the dark.<p>

Susan stole through the corridors, shadows snapping at her heels and a blade pressed cold into her hand. That it had come to this, sneaking through her own castle like a thief. Her steps were as soft and noiseless as a cat's, and she swept silently into the black space behind a statue as a set of guards marched past. They turned a corner, and she breathed again, continuing her stealthy path towards the guest quarters.

She had fought awfully with Lucy earlier.

_Lucy gazed tearfully at her dinner plate, gnawing on her lip ruthlessly in an effort to keep from crying._

"_Peas. Ed hated peas. Do you remember, Su? How he always used to groan and whinge about eating them, and P-Peter would sit here for hours until he ate at least half of them because he said that they were good for him."_

_Susan gave a deep sigh and a non-committal nod. Her strategy was to keep going. She lost Peter, so she held Cair Paravel together and carried on as normally as she could. It seemed as if she would lose Edmund, so she handed the military authority over to Oreius, took over the High Court of Justice and continued to reign with a steady hand. She wept for them late at night, of course, and the pain of losing them was indescribable, but she was a forward-mover. She conducted herself with determined calmness and efficiency. She would not allow their country to fall to ruin while she wallowed in despair. The memories burned, so she didn't touch them._

_Lucy, however, clasped them with both hands and held on tight while they seared her skin. There had not yet been a dinner time when Lucy did not find some painful reminder of the two people so precious to them, or a lunch, or a breakfast. Not a court session, not a negotiation, not a council. Everywhere she looked she would see their boys, and then she would tug at Susan's hand and turn her to face them too. Susan didn't want to look, but nonetheless she did, because it was a bittersweet kind of agony to find hints of them in everything. But part of her loathed being made to look, because if she turned her mind away then perhaps she could numb the pain a little._

"_Look, Lu...there is a possibility that neither of them will come back to us. You know that, don't you? You understand that both of them are probably going to...leave us."_

_Lucy's head snapped up, and Susan almost flinched under the poisonous glare she turned on her._

"_You don't think Peter's going to come back, do you? Or that Edmund's going to get better? You don't, do you?"_

_Susan opened her mouth, but could find no answer. _

"_How could you abandon them like that, Susan? They need us to keep faith in them! How on earth do you expect them to believe in themselves if we don't?"_

"_Sometimes believing in yourself isn't enough, Lucy! And it would be nice to think that they will return just because we have faith that they will, but that's not good enough! That won't protect Peter from some enemy's sword or teeth, and it won't stop Edmund turning to stone. Peter knew he would die, Lucy, he knew it! He told me he did. He told you too, but you just didn't want to listen. He was trying to prepare us for the worst. And now that Archenland has abandoned us, I don't think that there's any way this could possibly be anything but the worst!"_

_She went still, chest heaving. She realised that at some point during her rant she had stood up, and was now glaring hotly at her sister, because Lucy just kept insisting on dragging all her pain to the surface, and Susan couldn't stand it anymore. Tears coursed down Lucy's cheeks, pink with fury, as she leapt up too, striding close to Susan._

"_You have to see the worst in everything, don't you? You sound as if you don't even want them to come back!" she spat._

"_HOW DARE YOU!" Susan screamed, her voice raw with rage. "How dare you say that? Do you think I wouldn't give anything-absolutely _anything-_to have Peter home and safe,_ _or to see Edmund smile again? Because I would, Lucy, anything in the world! But I can't, because the world doesn't work that way!" _

_Bursting angrily into sobs, Lucy turned and fled the dining room._

So this was her last effort. Her final attempt to save Edmund because, she realised, sometimes letting go wasn't good enough, either.

She gripped the dagger handle hard so that whiteness washed over her knuckles. Turning to face the door to the chamber in which lay her last faint hope for Edmund's salvation, she took a deep breath. Suddenly, absurdly, she was struck with a perplexing question: should she knock? The element of surprise would offer her no advantage here. She raised her hand, faltered, dropped it again. She ran her tongue quickly over her dry lips, and then knocked before she could hesitate.

"Enter," an oily voice called from within.

She gritted her teeth and pushed the door open, then closed it swiftly behind her and turned to face him, lowering the hood of her cloak and letting the golden light from the fire and the candles highlight her features.

"Ah, Queen Susan. What an odd hour for a lady to come visiting. Perhaps you have changed your mind?"

Galen gave a lecherous grin from his armchair by the fire, his hooked nose casting a distorting shadow across his face. Susan's mind went blank, disgust and fear robbing her of her words, her shoulder prickling coldly where he had kissed her. She had carefully rehearsed every moment of this encounter in her mind, planning exactly what she would say and how she would control the situation, how she would coax the truth from him. What tumbled out of her mouth, rough and desperate, was:

"Tell me how to save Edmund, and I'll give you anything you desire."

"He cannot be saved," Galen replied dismissively, turning his attention back to the fire. Susan stood speechless for a moment, made dumb by the pain, heart crushed in her chest.

"So it was you, then?"

His eyes widened for an instant as he realised his slip, and then he turned his reptilian smile on her again.

"What does it matter if it was? He will die either way. Maybe it was me. What would you do if it were, Queen?"

"I'll denounce you to the court, and see you hanged for your treachery," she snarled.

"Oh? And how will you prove it? You have nothing against me, save your own suspicions."

"I saw you descending the staircase from Edmund's chambers!"

He rose, walked lazily to her, his smirk becoming increasingly unpleasant. She flinched as he touched her cheek lightly.

"Ah, but my poor, delicate, grief-stricken Queen, you were not in your right mind. What with the loss of your High King, and then such a terrible curse laid upon your younger brother, it is quite understandable for you to cast around for somebody to blame. But you have no evidence against me. Blame me publicly, and I shall simply tell the court that these are nothing more than the wild claims of a despairing woman blaming Archenland for her family's misfortune. You cannot convict me without solid evidence."

Susan's face drained of blood. She had lost her only power over him, her only bargaining chip. The threat of exposure had been made useless. She was entirely at his mercy. Edmund was beyond help, and there was little hope of vengeance if she could not expose Galen.

"But...but it w_as _you_."_

"Certainly it was me. There is something in that pretty head of yours, after all."

Susan whipped out the dagger, her earlier fury once more roused by his words. This had been her very last hope, and even that had faded. This man had taken a piece of her heart and ripped it away, and now it lay shrivelled and bleeding in his hand. She pointed the dagger, trembling, at his face.

"Why are you doing this to us?"

"I have nothing personal against your family, Queen. But a very wealthy gentleman is paying me a hefty sum and guaranteeing me a lifelong supply of wine and women in return for my services. Although I'm sure none of them will be quite as lovely as you."

His hand came up to her face again, and she smacked it sharply back with the flat of her dagger, then pressed the blade into his cheek.

"Why? What does he want with us?" her voice was savage, and a little hysterical.

"He has spied a window of opportunity, Queen. The High King has gone into the north, and without his support he will surely die. King Edmund, of course, will turn tragically to stone, and there will be whispers of it being the dead Witch's doing. Which will leave the two Queens undefended. And you must know how long the Tisroc has desired Narnia for his empire."

"The Tisroc? This is his doing?" she hissed.

"No. He knows nothing of this. An ambitious Tarkhaan, who hopes to find the greatest favour by offering the mighty Tisroc Narnia."

"You are not, then, a messenger of Lune's."

He grinned again.

"No. The fool sent his support forces, as promised. They were met in Fairfield and directed by a messenger from Cair Paravel up into the north, where every last man was slain by a Calormene blade."

"We sent no such messenger!"

"But I met them nonetheless."

Susan felt as though he had struck her. So many lives, lost on the selfish whim of some Tarkhaan. And Peter-did he know? Her lips felt clumsy, but she forced them to form words. Information would be her only ally now.

"Surely you are not supposed to tell me this. Why are you so free with it?"

He shrugged, and raised an eyebrow.

"You have a knife against my cheek. And what does it matter whether you know the plan or not? Both of the Kings will soon be dead, and regardless of whether you are aware of what is happening or not, you two Queens will be brought down also. There is nothing you can do to stop it."

"How did you do it?" she whispered, a sick feeling rising in the back of her mouth as she realised that this plot was far more intricate than she could have imagined. "How did you turn him to stone?"

"He takes a sleeping draught, does he not? It was a simple enough matter to exchange it for a heavy sedative. Once he had taken it, all it took was a quick incision. I thought his old scar was a rather fitting place, don't you? The magic of the Witch's wand was bound to be stronger if used there. "

"You follow the Witch, then?" Susan breathed.

"No. The Witch was defeated by four children and a talking lion. I follow Tash the Inexorable, the Terrible God. Her magic was merely a useful tool. Granted, I didn't expect you to come in and tuck him in like a doting nursemaid, but it was no matter. Those heavy drapes provided a satisfactory hiding place."

Susan's flesh crept and something inside her shivered to imagine him lurking behind the drapes, watching as she kissed her younger brother goodnight. The first time she had gone up to Edmund, he had been spread-eagled on his bed, the sleeping draught glass cracked on the floor. That must have just after he was sedated, because it was after that she had heard Galen coming back down the stairs. She watched the memory play out in her mind-those little moments with Edmund she had thought private, and they were not at all. He had been there, concealed, lurking in the fringes of the room like the shadow of death, leering at all those small, tender gestures.

She wanted to throw up, but she would not allow herself to. Her knife had lowered, shaking, from his face, and she barely noticed as he ducked away from her, numb with shock at this series of revelations.

"No way to save him..."she repeated brokenly.

Galen's smile was just a little too smug as he shook his head. Susan's eyes narrowed, suspicious.

"No way at all? You're absolutely sure? Remember, Galen. Anything you want is yours, if you will tell me how to save him."

"Anything I want, Queen?"

She knew that look. Something flickered in his eyes that she had seen in the eyes of many men before him. She swallowed hard, not stopping to think. She had said that she would give anything to have Edmund back, and by Aslan, she would. So she loosed the tie of her dark cloak and let it drop smoothly to the floor in a rumpled heap, exposing the milk white curve of her neck.

"Anything at all."

She observed him keenly as he fingered a small glass bottle concealed in the folds of his tunic, his eyes glittering lustfully. She gripped the dagger by her side.

"Then perhaps, Susan the Gentle, we could come to an agreement."

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><p><strong>AN: **Hm, is there hope for Edmund yet? Please review!


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: **Chapter 9, and things are getting a bit hairy. In which we drop in with Peter for a bit, and just in case we didn't all hate Galen enough, he does some more evil.

Special thanks to OldFashionedGirl95, who is simply marvellous and provided me with some brilliant pointers on Narnian geography which will hopefully allow me to keep this realistically in-universe. I may just have made Narnia slightly larger than it is supposed to be, though...

Thank you very much to all readers and reviewers! Please review, I'd love to know what you think :)

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><p>It had begun in earnest now.<p>

They were well out of Narnia, having pursued the beasts out of Owlwood, across the treacherous Northern Marsh and up into Ettinsmoor, harassing and snapping at one another. Peter's forces were in tatters, and in comparison, the blows they had dealt the enemy seemed pathetically small.

He had sixty-two soldiers left alive. Five of them were grievously wounded, three were sick, one was a gibbering wreck who claimed to see long-dead relatives emerging from across the moors, and all were suffering from exhaustion and undernourishment, himself included. None of them had bathed properly in almost two weeks, and he was beginning to think that the dirt was as much a part of him as his skin was. There were no songs on their lips now, and no slight, tentative hope of victory in their hearts. They would fight until they died, and then their blood would run down into the earth, and their bodies would either be devoured or burned with their heads to the east. Their souls would be in the paws of the Lion. Every last soldier, even little Rook, had both shed blood and spilt it.

Peter glanced over to where Rook was sitting with a slightly bloodied bandage wound around his head, his hair sticking out over it in tufts, polishing a set of Peter's armour with such enthusiasm that he wasn't sure there would be anything left by the time he was done, and almost without thinking Peter slipped some of his own meagre bread ration into Rook's. Every time he looked at the boy he had to remind himself that even this was a better fate than being left in the forest to fend for himself, but Peter couldn't help but feel that he was snatching away Rook's childhood, just as his own had been snatched with an '_I promise I'll look after the others'_ and a man's sword and a king's crown. Rook's shoulders already looked broader, and his features harder and more pronounced as the baby fat slipped off him. His arms were stronger, and he knew more of hardship and warfare than any boy of twelve should.

But could not the same be said of Edmund? Peter remembered watching in astonishment as Edmund matured rapidly when they travelled Narnia in the months after their coronation, ridding the land of the Remnant Followers of the Witch. He had seen his brother's face sharpen, and his eyes grow clever and his grip on his sword become ever more sure. He had watched him lose the scrawniness of boyhood, and though he would always be shorter and more slender than Peter, he had begun to stand tall with his shoulders straight, instead of hunched as they always had been before. When they arrived at last back at Cair Paravel, the boys had been shocked to see the change responsibility and anxiety had wrought in their sisters, both of whom seemed truly more as adults than children, just as they themselves were. Of course, the younger three said the same of him, and often that his change had been even faster. But had he not willingly sacrificed his childhood? He had given it away freely and received in return a kingdom full of subjects who would grow to love him, and a family to raise.

Peter swallowed hard and blinked away the hot prickling behind his eyes. He longed painfully to see them. He could almost see sweet Lucy's tear-streaked face before him, as she had looked on the day he had left. Susan, despairing, weeping into his shoulder by starlight as the younger two slept. Edmund, pale and serious, hands trembling as he offered Peter Rhindon. His bedroll was entirely too spacious without his younger brother curled into his side. They wrapped ever more tightly around one another as both grew physically and in comfort with each other, and fitting into one bedroll became increasingly difficult. Yet somehow they always managed. What he would give to have Edmund here now, at his right hand, with his fathomless dark gaze, murmuring into his ear as he had often done when Peter's spirit was weak with that burning conviction that _they would make it._ But if Edmund were here, he knew he would want nothing more than for him to be home and safe.

Peter nibbled carefully at a small piece of cheese. They could not afford to waste so much as a crumb of food. In one of the more recent raids, the Ogres had targeted their supplies, not the soldiers themselves, and had sent a party back in the night to sink what they had stolen in the marshland near the coast. It had been a devastating blow, out here on the moors where there was nothing but birds to shoot and the odd bush with edible berries. Everything had to be counted and painstakingly re-rationed, and now hunger gnawed and twisted in their stomachs, along with exhaustion burning in their muscles and cold stiffness clinging to their bones. They barely noticed the mud anymore, except when a soldier was injured and they had to scrub away at the skin around the wound until it was red, raw and fresh, so as to avoid infection. They had no water to spare for washing, and little for medical purposes. Before all other things, they had to drink. They tried collecting the fine drizzle that misted the air so often on the moors, but it did them little good. They had laughed on the nights when storms had roared over their heads and the rain had lashed down with stinging ferocity, filling the containers they had set out with delicious little clinking noises. But still their lips were cracked and their throats were dry, and they would wake in the morning and taste the foulness of their own breath.

A sudden hush crushed the noises of the camp, except for a few urgent hisses as someone doused the fires and the small centres of warmth flickered and vanished into the dim, hazy whiteness. A Satyr hurried out of the foggy dusk and began muttering in his ear.

"Men sighted to the south. Maybe three hundred yards. Origins and loyalties unknown, sire."

Peter nodded gravely, and strode over to where he could make Rook out, still sitting on the ground, looking bewildered. He grasped the boy's shoulder, and pressed a finger to his lips. Rook also nodded, and stood quietly. The soldiers started to gather together silently, forming a defensive huddle around the sick and injured.

They squinted into the fog. Slowly, the shapes of men became clear, like shadows drifting across the moor.

"Who goes there?" Peter called warily, his voice echoing across the distance, mocking itself.

An arrow whizzed suddenly out of the dusk, embedding itself solidly in the ground at Peter's feet with a _swoosh-thunk._ The group leapt back, and the tension tightened further. Peter crouched down and tugged the arrow from the earth, straightening and glancing again at the shapes before looking down to examine it. He clenched his teeth and narrowed his eyes at the menacing shadows. The fletching was, unmistakeably, Archenlandish.

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><p>Susan gave a trembling smile.<p>

"Perhaps we could."

Galen licked his lips.

"If I had a cure for your brother, you would pay any price for it? Anything I demanded, you would give?"

She gave a quick nod. A wicked smile curled under his nose.

"Then you would surrender your body to me? You would allow me to possess you? You would be completely unresisting?"

Susan felt her face pale. One kiss had left her shaking and disgusted, feeling polluted. Now he wanted everything that she could give him. He demanded her maidenhood, her honour, her purity in return for her Edmund's life. It was not the first time a man had demanded she give herself to him. The first had been swiftly dealt with by Oreius. Mr Tumnus had knocked down the second with his umbrella. She had fled the third. The fourth had gotten the farthest, before his neck had been snapped like a twig in Peter's forceful grip. And yet none of them had had the power to take her little brother's life, to crush the sputtering spark that still flickered within him. None of them had had the power to tear her family and her country apart.

She parted her lips slightly, tilting her chin up a little more so that the light caught her eyes and gleamed along her open neck, giving him a delicate look from under her lashes. She knew how to make herself an object of lust. She knew how to make herself desirable to a man.

Galen's breath caught slightly and he blinked, his eyes suddenly dark with want.

"Alright," he murmured roughly. "I have what you seek. After all, what if I had cut myself on it?" He gave a distracted laugh. "I will give you the cure for your brother, if the most beautiful woman in the world will give herself to me utterly."

"Yes," she whispered, low and seductive.

He removed the precious bottle from his tunic and Susan lunged at him with a snarl, dagger flashing in the light as she aimed a stab at his chest. He swerved out of the way, snake-like. With a small growl of frustration, she swung around and swiped at him wildly, but he anticipated it and ducked, darting away from her and out onto the balcony. In the light that spilled out of the chamber, she could see him stood at the balustrade, panting, holding Edmund's life in a bottle over the edge.

"Oh, you are treacherous, Queen! A cunning woman indeed."

He glowered at her with a fierce, triumphant look.

"Give me your dagger."

She hesitated, clutching her only weapon. He hung the bottle further out over the balcony. They were three floors up. If he dropped it, there would be no retrieving it. If she tried to kill him now, the bottle would slip from his dead fingers before she could catch it, and Edmund's life too would be forfeit.

"Give it to me!"

She slid it across the floor to him. He snatched it up and held it close to his body. She was utterly defenceless now. Watching him with wide eyes, she tried to control and level her breaths, clamping down on the terror expanding rapidly in the pit of her stomach.

"Now. _Now._ Perhaps we shall have to re-negotiate, hmm? Now I know how slippery you are. We must be honest with each other, mustn't we? After all, it is a life we're playing with."

He shot her his old twisted smirk.

"Give me your body, or I will drop this bottle and your brother will die."

Susan took two more shuddering breaths and steeled herself. She had no more tricks. Whatever he demanded, she must give to him. For Edmund.

"Very well."

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><p><strong>AN: **I hope you enjoyed it, please let me know what you thought :)


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: **I am so sorry it's taken me so long to update this, please forgive me! My life turned upside-down in the past few weeks and I've been trying to sort it out, and exams are coming up too. I'm a bit rusty, but hopefully this chapter will be ok.

Since this is Chapter Ten, and that's kind of a marker, I'd like to dedicate it to everyone who has read and reviewed this story, my first proper full-length one. Please review, your opinions, as always, are highly valued :)

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><p>Before her words had fully left her lips, Galen grabbed Susan's face in his hands with bruising force and crushed his mouth against hers. He tugged angrily at her dress, planting hard, sloppy kisses along her throat as she bit down on her lip and tried not to scream. Think of Edmund. Her siblings were her whole heart. She had locked away the part that was Peter's, believing him to be lost, but while there was still breath in her body there was nothing she would not do to keep Edmund and Lucy safe. Galen's hands grabbed at her chest, and she wrenched herself away from him automatically, disgust shivering over her skin, sickness rising in the back of her mouth. He lashed out at her immediately, cracking an open palm across her face, and she tasted blood for a second time, tears stinging her eyes and blurring her sight. Edmund. She was doing this for Edmund. Without missing a beat, his mouth was once again smothering hers, as he squeezed her buttocks painfully. She gave a little gasp of shock, and he made a rough, lustful grunt, pressing himself against her. He snatched a handful of her hair, winding his fist into it, pulling her head back.<p>

Abruptly, he froze and moved away from her a little, gazing unseeingly into her face, rubbing the dark, sleek hair between his fingers.

"They say that once you have tasted the fruit of paradise, you can eat no other fruit..." he murmured absently.

"W-What?" Susan trembled, confused.

"There exists no such perfection in Calormen, where I shall dwell once the conquest of Narnia is complete, and the Tisroc will surely desire such a fine prize for his own harem. No matter how many women I lay with, I would never be able to replicate a single night with you. It is better, I think, never to taste fruit that will dull the taste of all other fruit, but that you may never taste again. I want to be able to enjoy women."

"So...you will not have me?"

"No," He shuddered, reining in his desire, drawing in a deep breath and stepping back fully, but kept hold of her hair. Susan's heart clenched, half in immense relief, half in raw panic. This was the very last thing she had to give. What else could she possibly offer him for Edmund's life?

"You will not give me the cure for Edmund?"

His eyes glittered at her, coldly collected once more.

"I did not say that I would not give you the cure, Queen. We will find another price."

Hopelessness rushed through her. "What else can I give you?"

He leered at her smugly, running the strand of soft black hair through his fingers, laying it gently over her white shoulder. Her flesh prickled in anticipation of his answer, of what his demand would be.

"Your hair."

Susan's mind went numb with shock.

"My-my hair?"

"Your hair. I shall not lie with you, but I still need something to remember you by-your smell. Something to remind me that I glimpsed paradise."

"I-"

"Of course," he smirked, walking slowly backwards out onto the balcony, holding her gaze fast. "You could decline, if your hair is too high a price. With beauty comes vanity, so I've heard. If the loss of that lovely long hair-how long have you been growing it now? Nine, ten years? It must be a quarter of your beauty, of the most beautiful woman in the world. Is that worth your brother's life?"

He plucked the vial containing the cure off the balcony railing and held it out once more into the night, her slender dagger clasped loosely in his other hand.

"Your hair, Queen."

He tossed the dagger at her carelessly, and as she fumbled to catch it the blade sliced cleanly into her palm, leaving the blade glistening ruby with her own blood. She gripped the handle and swiped the blade angrily across her dress, staining the pale material. Dropping to her knees before the fire, she lifted a heavy lock of raven hair and sawed it quickly off at her jaw line. She held it out before her and dropped it deliberately on the floor, glaring at Galen defiantly, seething at his triumphant smirk. She continued, working her way around her head, savagely cutting away years of nurture and pride. Halfway around she stopped, and looked up at Galen.

"Here. You have half of my hair. Give me the cure, and I will give you the rest of it."

"Not a chance, pretty one. You have deceived me once before. Cut it all off, and then you will have your cure."

Susan continued, eyes burning. Before long, there was a dark pool of hair on the rug in front of the fire, and hers was cut into an uneven, ragged bob. She forced back tears and sobs with an iron conviction that her hair was a tiny sacrifice in return for her brother's life. It would be a lie to say that she was not a little vain, and her hair, a waterfall of dark, silky strands cascading down past her hips, had been her pride and joy for many years now. But Edmund would be safe, and that was all that really mattered.

"There. You have what you wanted. Now give me the cure for Edmund."

He threw the delicate glass bottle at her, and she snatched it out of the air, cradling Edmund's salvation to her body. She staggered to her feet and dashed towards the door, leaving a heap of raven tresses on the floor, slamming it behind her just in time to see him gather some up and hold it to his nose, smelling it, like a hideous parody of how Peter used to gather her in his arms and bury his face in her hair, inhaling the scent.

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><p>Peter gave a low growl and flung the Archenlandish arrow away.<p>

"I am Peter, High King of Narnia! I demand that you show yourselves!"

"We know who you are, King!"

A harsh, rough voice echoed back to them. Peter exchanged taut glances with his captains, and pushed Rook slightly more behind him. He lifted his chin, and decided on a show of bravado, lacing his tone with superiority.

"Then you should know of the power I have at my command. Show yourselves! Or are you too cowardly?"

"Power, King?" No longer echoing, the voice was suddenly close to him, intimate through the fog that had rendered the moor a white wasteland. "You have sixty-two soldiers left alive, and only fifty-three in decent enough shape to meet us in battle. We've been watching you since you left the forest."

Alarmed at this, Peter spared a moment to berate himself fiercely for not having noticed them being followed. How disappointed Oreius would be.

"Then tell me, who are you? And what do you want with us?"

A rugged figure stepped suddenly out of the fog into Peter's vision. He was a hulking bear of a man, with coarse black hair and beard. His armour was dull and dented, and the Archenlandish eagle screeched forlornly on his tabard. Rook gave a small gasp of recognition from behind Peter.

"We are Archenlanders. Our King sent us to die in a war that was not ours. It's your concern what happens in the far North, not ours. Why do you expect honest Archenlanders to fight and die for you? To spill their blood on Narnian soil?"

"What are you talking about? The Archenlandish assistance was murdered by Calormenes. We saw the tree. We buried them."

"Those that were fool enough to stay were, aye. Them as believed that it was our duty to you Narnians through the alliance to help defend your territories were all slain and strung up in a tree. But us-we've got some proper sense. No point in dying for a useless cause," the strange man sneered.

"You're _deserters!"_

Rook's voice, high and thin with emotion, burst out from behind Peter as he pushed to the front. "You're the ones that ran away from the fight!"

Sure enough, other shadowy shapes were emerging from the fog. Groups of surly-looking men bearing the eagle of Archenland slunk out of the hazy whiteness. The huge, hairy man turned a menacing gaze on Rook, recognition sparked in his face, and his lip curled in disdain as he took in the Lion that had replaced the eagle on Rook's tunic.

"Oh, it's you, runt. Got picked up by this lot, did you? I thought you'd have been right up there in that tree with your Sir Roderick. And you, King. They call you Peter the Magnificent, don't they? Finest warrior in the North. Never would have had you pegged for a softie who went around picking up useless runts."

Peter bit back a sharp reply, restraining his anger, determined to keep calm and grasped Rook's shoulder, pushing him forcefully back into the security of the Narnian huddle.

"So you're deserters from the Archenlandish assistance."

The man rolled his eyes exaggeratedly.

"Oh, you're a bright one, ain't you? Yes. There we were, trotting up into some forest with those idiot knight-in-shining-armour types insisting that we'd bump into you lot any minute, when we were suddenly set upon by a bunch of Calormenes. Pretty vicious they were, too. And me and the boys, well, we thought that seeing as there was no sign of you, and it wasn't Calormenes we were meant to be fighting anyway, what was the point in hanging around to get killed? So we deserted."

Peter opened his mouth furiously to begin a tirade about cowardice and dishonour, repulsed by their leaving their comrades to die, and then noticed the comparative sizes of their forces and closed it again.

"Name's Brighend, by the way. Thanks for asking," Brighend added, tone doused in sarcasm. Peter glared, and most people would have trembled in their boots at that glacial blue gaze, but Brighend merely lifted an eyebrow, refusing to be intimidated.

"Well, what do you want with us?" Peter asked coldly, with just a hint of I-am-a-king-and-you-will-fear-me in his voice. "Since you've made it quite clear that you have no interest in Narnians or their affairs, what are you doing here? Why didn't you just scurry off home to Archenland? Why bother to follow us all the way up north across marshes and moors and through every kind of hardship?"

It was only now that Brighend looked even remotely uncomfortable. He shifted uneasily, glancing awkwardly at his boots.

"Even the common folk have heard about you in Archenland. The mighty High King Peter of Narnia, the great northern warrior. They tell stories. Travelling minstrels bring songs about your exploits south into our country. All the stuff we've heard about you, at least some of it must be true. You're meant to be the very best there is. And, well... the fact is, we need your help."

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><p><strong>AN: **Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it! I wonder what the deserters want with Peter... Please review, I'd love to know what you thought :)


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N:** I am so sorry it's been so long since I last updated this! I had exams, and then a short holiday-and then I went to Oxford, and saw the actual lamppost that inspired C.S. Lewis, and a door with a lion on it and Fauns, that supposedly inspired him too. Woot! Anyway, here's the chapter. Enjoy!

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><p>"Lucy!"<p>

Lucy grunted ungraciously and turned to bury her nose in the familiar, worn smell of the stuffed lion under her arm, hoping that the noise that had pulled her roughly from her deep sleep would go away. The insistent tapping on the wood of her door seemed to hammer inside her head.

"Lucy, it's me. Susan. Open the door!"

Rousing herself properly, Lucy frowned as she hauled herself out of bed and stumbled across the room. There was still a bitterness hanging in the air between them from their previous argument, and she could not think what Susan could want so late at night. She yanked her door open and was about to make a tetchy reply when shock froze her words in her mouth.

"S-Susan... Your hair, what happened?"

Her elder sister was stood before her with a small glass bottle clutched to her chest, a slightly wild look in her eyes and a ragged bob cut. The thick, shining locks of her sister's hair that were so familiar to her and that Lucy so loved to run her fingers through and weave flowers into had vanished.

"I traded it."

"What do you mean, you traded it?"

"My hair. You were right, Lucy, you were right all along. We can't stop believing in them. I almost gave up-but you can't give up, you have to keep believing that they'll make it. So I found out who it was and I gave him my hair. For Edmund."

Lucy stared at her sister, and began to wonder seriously whether recent events had simply been too much for her and her mind had snapped. She took one of Susan's pale arms, surprised at how tense her muscles were, and tried to draw her into the room.

"Maybe you'd better come inside, Su. You're not making any sense."

Susan ripped her arm away, pulling back.

"No, Lucy, we have to get to Edmund's room. We have to go now."

"All right. If you say so."

Something tightened inside Lucy's chest as she allowed herself to be dragged down the corridor towards Edmund's chambers. What if Susan really had lost it? If her older sister's sanity had snapped, then she would be left alone in the castle, trying to steer it through a crisis. She seemed to be convinced that she could cure Edmund, but hadn't they already tried everything? Healers from across the world, the best medicines and charms that money could buy. What could Susan possibly have obtained that they had not already tried?

Edmund's rooms were as cold as death. The servants had long given up lighting the fires here, as it did nothing to improve his condition. He lay like a statue among his sheets, and Lucy's eyes burned just to look at his stiff, unmoving face. Suddenly, she was angry. Susan had roused her in the middle of the night with some crazy theory that she had a miracle cure for their brother and now she would force Lucy to watch yet another solution fail without so much as an explanation.

"Susan," she snapped. "I think you'd better tell me what's going on here."

Susan turned to look at her, eyes wide, and abruptly she seemed to understand. Something calmed within her, and she took a deep, shaky breath, giving Lucy a trembling smile.

"Of course. Of course. I'm sorry, I just-with everything that's happened-"

She went to sit on the side of Edmund's bed and held a slender hand out to Lucy. Lucy felt her sudden anger sputter and then die. Here was her older sister, calm and in control. She took the outstretched hand and went to sit by Susan on the bed, letting her older sister draw her into her side. Susan began to talk, and the whole story poured out of her in an unstoppable flood, how Galen had groped her, how she had later started to suspect him, how their argument had galvanized her into action, going to his rooms with a knife, how he'd confessed freely the plan to bring the Golden Age to a catastrophic end by this unknown Tarkhaan's conquest of it, how she'd intended to kill him and take the cure but he'd put her in an impossible situation, how she'd almost sold her body for Edmund's life, how she'd traded her hair for the cure instead and fled him. By the end she was crying, her words tripping over one another as she shakily held the bottle out to Lucy.

"And here it is. This is it, the cure that Galen gave me."

"Oh, Susan!"

Lucy wrapped both her arms around her sister and squeezed her tight. She'd thought her cold and callous, couldn't believe that Susan had so easily given up on Peter and Edmund. But she hadn't. This was the sister Lucy knew and loved, who would fight for her family to the death, give up everything for them. She had a cure for Edmund, and she was back to being Lucy's big sister again, so perhaps everything really could be all right.

"Why didn't you just tell me?" she asked gently.

"I-I couldn't," Susan hiccoughed. "I didn't want you involved. I didn't want him to hurt you. I was so afraid that he'd try to touch you the way he did me. I'd never, never let that happen to you, Lu."

"Well, it's going to be all right, Su. We've got the cure for Edmund, and we know his plan. We'll send riders out to Peter and inform him. Come on, we may as well get started. Where's that bottle?"

Lucy possessed a prodigious talent for producing handkerchiefs from nowhere, and she utilised it now, dabbing at Susan's cheeks with prettily embroidered square of soft cloth. Susan smiled tearfully at her, and pushed the little glass bottle into her hands.

"You do it, Lu. You're better at this sort of thing than I am."

Both of them clambered onto the bed, settling themselves on either side of their brother. They shared a look burning with anxiety-if this failed, there was nothing else. They would lose Edmund. Then Lucy leaned forward, carefully unstoppering the bottle, and slid the swirling lilac liquid between his lips. She set the empty bottle on his bedside table, and then she and Susan stared intently into his face, waiting for a blink, a stir, some sign that the spark of life still glowed within him. They waited and waited, and still he lay there as if carved from ice. They watched him for what felt like forever. Eventually Lucy's face crumpled, and a small, keening sob pushed through her lips. Silent, hopeless tears slicked Susan's cheeks. It hadn't worked.

Suddenly there was a low, harsh sound. Both girls held back their tears and exchanged a wild glance, leaning in closer to their brother. It came again, a rough, parched breath, rasping over Edmund's throat, but it was deep and even. Then came another, and another, and another.

The girls flung themselves at him, wrapping him tightly in their arms, kissing his face, his hair, their sobs now of relieved joy. They pressed close to him, and where the warmth of their flesh was flush against him, he began to warm. Though he did not wake, he was blessedly breathing. They leapt off the bed and scurried about the room, Susan briskly crackling the fire into life and Lucy dripping water painstakingly into his dry mouth. When they could find nothing else to do to make him more comfortable, they snuggled back into their places either side of him, clasping hands over his chest, and settled down to their first contented sleep for a long time.

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><p>Peter blinked, permitting himself a moment of bafflement.<p>

"My help? And what makes you think that I will help you?"

Brighend shifted again and arrogance settled back into his stance as he smirked slightly at Peter.

"You'll die if you don't."

"Was that a threat?" Peter snarled, stepping forward slightly, fingers tightening around Rhindon's hilt. The air between the two men crackled with aggression as both struggled to tip the invisible balance of power hung between them. Their respective armies bristled, sensing conflict.

"My, my, King Peter. Aren't we spoiling for a fight? I see where you must have gotten your reputation from."

Infuriated beyond belief, Peter bit down on his lip so hard he drew blood, determined to remain regal.

"And no, it weren't no threat. It was a statement of fact. Like I said before, you've only got fifty-three battle ready soldiers, and you've got this here lot of monsters to defeat. Do you honestly think you can do it with that sorry lot? Nah, you need our help something bad. So I'm making you an offer you can't refuse."

Resisting the urge to roll his eyes at the cliché, he lifted an eyebrow at the man. Brighend was annoyingly difficult to intimidate, something that Peter usually found almost effortless if he so chose.

"Oh?"

"Aye," he nodded in a self-satisfied sort of way. "We'll help you defeat these monsters, as we were meant to, fulfil the alliance terms and all that moonshine. But only on the condition that immediately afterwards, you come straight down to Archenland with us and help us see off the Calormenes menacing our border. You need the manpower to defeat these monsters, and we need the most feared warrior in the north to help us see off those dirty Calormenes. We don't care a jot for Narnia, but Archenland's where our farms and forges and taverns and women are, so we'd rather keep it Archenlandish and not Calormene, thank you kindly."

"And your King? What says Lune to all this?"

"He was rather hoping you'd consent to help. We think that it was the same Calormenes as killed a bunch of our soldiers back there. They're trying to weaken you, cut you off from helping further south. Archenland is threatened with Calormene invasion, which means Narnia is next on the list. They've timed it brilliantly. They wait until you're away in the north and can't help, and then strike."

Peter was numb with shock. His tongue felt suddenly too large for his mouth, and he struggled to force out words as his soldiers muttered nervously amongst themselves behind him.

"But Edmund. He's still at Cair Paravel. He'll defend it."

Brighend shrugged.

"If they've targeted you like this, King-making sure you're isolated against monsters that are sure to kill you-then I'm pretty sure they'll be targeting the other fellow who stands in the way of them conquering Narnia."

Peter's stomach turned to ice and panic pounded in his head. The Calormenes did indeed have perfect timing. Up here in the north, he was no use to anyone, struggling fruitlessly away against hordes of demons-exactly what they had intended. Now Edmund was in danger, and Lucy and Susan too. Brighend was right. He could not refuse their offer. He needed a quick victory here so that he could help defend Archenland, and therefore Narnia, against the Calormenes. He swallowed hard, and drew himself up. They would pay in blood for the deaths of the Archenlanders, and may their Tash help them if they had harmed his brother or sisters.

"Very well then, Master Brighend. You have yourself a deal."

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><p><strong>AN: **Hmm, things seem to be looking up a bit... The next chapter will hopefully come more quickly. Thanks for reading, reviews are much appreciated :)


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: **I'm back on schedule with chapters, I think-apologies about the long wait for the last one. Enjoy!

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><p>The early-morning sun streamed quietly through the drapes into Edmund's chamber, rousing Susan gently. She smiled a little, snuggling into the warmth at her side, her smile widening and heart squeezing in thankfulness as she realised that the warmth was emanating from her brother's flesh. She blinked the sleep from her eyes, raising herself up on one elbow and lifting a hand to brush her hair back, expecting it to slide long and silky through her fingers. Her fingers slipped quickly into thin air, and she remembered with a pang the events of the previous night. Galen crouched on the floor, hungrily pressing her severed locks to his nose and lips. She pushed him from her mind and gazed down into Edmund's face with not the slightest hint of regret for what she had done. His skin once more had a pink flush, and his cheek was soft under her touch. His breaths were no longer harsh, but deep and full and smooth, and with each one the tears on her heart from endless nights sitting at his bedside praying for his life began to heal.<p>

She reached over him to poke Lucy into wakefulness so that she too might see Edmund's miraculous improvement, but her hand flapped aimlessly into space. She snapped her gaze over to Edmund's other side, and could see nothing but a cold dent in the bedclothes. Frowning, Susan sat up fully, scanning the room for some sign of her sister. Finding nothing, she glanced back at the empty space in the bed and this time noticed a small square of folded parchment nestled among the sheets. Dread settled in her stomach as she snatched it up, almost ripping it in her haste to unfold it.

_Tut tut, Susan dear._

_Did you really think that your hair was worth your brother's life? It's a delightful bonus, certainly, but I'm afraid only one thing is equal in value to the life of a Narnian monarch-and that's the life of another Narnian monarch. As you may have noticed, I took a small liberty in obtaining my payment for sparing your brother. She put up quite a fight at first, but she came surprisingly quietly when I told her that it was her or one of you. I must have a present to take back to my Tarkhaan, you see, else he'll be cross, be it King Edmund's stone head or a feisty little Queen for him to tame as he pleases._

_Until the next time, Your Majesty._

Susan blinked, and read it again. Then again. Then a fourth time.

Galen had tricked her.

Played her for a fool.

And she was. Oh, by Aslan, she was. _Fool._

Her stomach dropped through the floor. He had Lucy, and only the Lion knew what kind of hell he would put her through. Her darling, one of her most precious treasures, the light of her life, of her brothers' lives. Gone. And that monster had her.

She staggered out of bed and wrenched open the door, mind in a haze of panic, stomach rolling sickeningly. She hurled herself down the stairs, hurtled along the corridors with bare feet, not caring that she was clad only in her nightdress and was attracting startled looks from the dignitaries and servants. She threw open the door to Galen's guest chamber and it slammed against the wall. There was nothing there. No Galen, no Lucy, no clothes or personal effects. Even the bed had been made. It seemed to mock her.

She sagged against the doorframe, painful, gasping sobs constricting her chest, shock numbing her mind. Suddenly she turned and flew down to the main hall, a series of half-crazed notions flashing through her head, although she knew inside that it was already too late-maybe he hadn't left yet, maybe there was a chance she could stop him, shoot him, throw herself in front of his horse, _anything-_

She flung open the huge set of main doors to the palace, tripping down the steps into the courtyard where she had bid Peter farewell all those weeks ago, drawing stares from the people who had been milling about there. She managed to run almost halfway across it before grief and hopelessness brought her crashing to the floor, skinning her bare knees on the cold stone. It was all she could do to kneel there and howl her sister's name. There seemed no part of her life into which Galen had not forced his influence. He had ensured that Peter was denied assistance in war, leaving him desperate and abandoned in the north, only a matter of time before he was cut down. He had almost turned Edmund into an unfeeling statue, as cold as ice, and now in payment for sparing him he had taken Lucy as a present for this unknown menace, this Tarkhaan who seemed to linger in the background like a puppet master. Galen had crept in while they were sleeping, their most private and intimate time, and literally stolen her baby sister from the bed where they slept. Her skin bunched into gooseflesh to imagine him slithering about the three of them while they slept, leering at them, snatching Lucy from their sibling huddle.

The people watched, frozen with shock as their Gentle Queen collapsed to the floor, her beautiful hair cut short, her face red and blotchy, screaming as if her heart were on fire. Her cries rang hauntingly across the silent courtyard. No one knew what to do in the face of such despair from their Queen.

Eventually, a small, brave group hurried over, consisting of Oreius and Mr Tumnus, along with Captain Phraxus and a few other officers from the army.

"Majesty, what-"

"He's-He's _taken_ her! SHE'S GONE!"

"The Queen Lucy? She's been kidnapped?"

Susan thrust the note at Oreius, and he read it swiftly, a frown carving into his brow and a fire igniting in his eyes as he read.

"Filth!" he snarled, stamping his hoof hard enough to make some of the surrounding officers step back warily. "I presume this is the work of our visitor? The messenger? Archenland will pay for this!"

"He's not from Archenland! He's with the _Calormenes! _He told me so!"

Oreius nodded sternly, as though he might have known, and passed it to Phraxus, who let out a stream of furious expletives directed at Galen, Fauns being generally more passionate than Centaurs. Susan quivered on the floor. This was more than she could handle. Edmund had been ill, Lucy had been kidnapped, she was expected to run a castle and a country alone. Her life seemed to be crumbling down around her. She needed a rock, an anchor, something to ground her. She needed Peter.

Tumnus helped her carefully to her feet and she swayed there with his arm firm around her. She took a few deep, tearful breaths, forcing her wild grief and anger down, setting bitter authority on her face. She wanted Peter, but he was not here, and she ruled in his stead. She would not dishonour him. She would act like a Queen, even while one of the people she loved most dearly was torn away from her. She straightened her back, scrubbed the tears from her eyes, lifted her chin. Even stood frailly in her nightdress, trembling, supported by Tumnus, she carried herself like a Queen.

"Send out the Dogs. Scour every inch of this castle for any trace of them and follow their trail from here. _Find her."_

The group of officers dispersed, scurrying away across the courtyard to do as she had commanded. She and Tumnus turned to begin making their way back into the castle, but Oreius caught her shoulder briefly.

"We will, Majesty. We will not rest until she is safe again. We will pursue that swine to the end of the world, nowhere will be safe for him. We will bring Queen Lucy home."

Susan nodded faintly.

"Yes...Thank you, Oreius."

She was helped slowly up the steps by Tumnus, like an old woman, bent with the weight of the world. They walked unsteadily into the hall, and Susan looked up to see a tall, lean figure descending the staircase from the upper floors rapidly, also barefoot and shirt flapping loose around his slender frame.

"Edmund!" she gasped, lurching forward out of Tumnus's grip towards him. He took one look at her and covered the floor between them in a few quick strides, pulling her into his arms.

"Susan, what's the matter? What's going on? I woke up this morning and the whole castle seemed to be in an uproar."

"But...you were... how are you feeling?"

"Fine. A little stiff, perhaps, but perfectly hale. Now will you tell me what's wrong?"

Susan pulled back to look into his face, and the euphoria that rose in her chest to be able to look into his eyes and see in them life, to have him look at her with expression, to have him stand before her and hold her in a strong grip contrasted achingly with the agony of losing Lucy.

"Do you not remember what happened to you?"

He frowned a little, confusion clouding his face.

"I remember collapsing at a war council, and then being very cold and tired. Then nothing, until I woke up this morning."

She gaped at him a moment, and then clutched him close to her again, her hands fisting in the back of his shirt. In a minute or two, she would have to tell him about Lucy, and tear him apart as she had been. But first she would have these few golden moments of peace and love.

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><p>"Oi! Oi, runt!"<p>

Rook stared determinedly down at King Peter's shield, continuing to scrub it carefully, telling himself firmly that he was no longer the pathetic boy who answered to 'runt.' He was High King Peter's page, not some snivelling boy. He marvelled as his sponge passed over the scarlet Lion. Perhaps one day he might meet the great Aslan.

"Runt! Oi, what's with you? You deaf, or something?"

Rook gritted his teeth, and scrubbed more vigorously. Suddenly, his chin was snatched into a rough grip and wrenched upwards, startling him so that he unintentionally let the shining shield slide down into the dirt. He found himself looking into a beady pair of beetle-black eyes.

"I'm talking to you, runt, and I expect an answer when I address you. Understand?"

Brighend sneered at him, uncomfortably close to his face, so that he could smell the stale wine on his breath and caught in his tangled beard. He released Rook's face roughly, shoving him to one side. He glanced downwards and saw the magnificent shield on the ground, then lifted an unpleasant smirk to Rook.

"So, running round after the Narnians, are we?"

He planted a heel on the shield and pressed it into the muck.

"Well, you belong to Archenland's army, and don't you forget it, runt. Now that that moron Roderick's gotten himself killed, you're under my command. And I want all my armour polished so much I could use it as a shaving mirror, and that goes for my shield, too. And you're to make sure I don't run dry of wine. Got that?"

Rook swallowed hard, then glowered bravely up at the huge man.

"No."

"What?"

"No," he repeated, more strongly this time. "I'm not your servant. I'm High King Peter's page. So I'm not going to polish your armour or refill your wineskin. I serve the High King now."

Brighend's face clouded over stormily, and he bent close the boy, grabbing a fistful of his tunic and shaking him hard.

"Now listen here, runt-"

A cold, glittering sword point pressed suddenly into the side of his neck, and Brighend froze.

"Let go of him," came a voice, as calm as a summer ocean but icier that the northern wind. Brighend straightened up and stepped back carefully, the sword point never leaving his neck. There stood Peter, wearing the chilling, regal expression that made even Rook fear him a little.

"He is my page now, by his choice and mine. He is in my service. I will not have you threatening him. I will not even have you near him. You will keep away from him, and I will not see you speaking to him again. Do you understand?"

"Yes," Brighend muttered, and then stomped away, smarting at having to submit to the Narnian King.

Peter sheathed his sword with a hiss of metal, and his gaze was warm and friendly again as he turned it on Rook.

"Are you all right, lad?"

Rook smiled shyly, nodding.

"Yes, sir-"

"_Peter, _Rook."

"I mean, yes, Peter. I'm sorry about your shield, though, I didn't mean to..."

Peter clicked his tongue as he stooped to pick it up, surveying the mess on it.

"Ah, well. It's looked worse. We'll clean it up later, shall we? How about we go and get something to eat now, hm?"

Rook nodded eagerly, grasping the hand that Peter offered, pulling him to his feet, and off the two went in search of food.

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><p><strong>AN:** Did you really think I'd let them off so easily? Anyway, thanks for reading, reviews are much appreciated. :)


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: ** And here is the next chapter. Enjoy!

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><p>"I WILL HAVE HIS BLOOD FOR THIS!"<p>

"Edmund-"

"I'LL SKIN HIM ALIVE! I'LL HAVE HIS HEAD ON A PIKE!"

"Edmund, would you just _listen-"_

Edmund spun angrily on his heel and began to pace another length of the little parlour they had moved into, his shoulders tense, face stiff with rage, striding to and fro like a caged beast. Susan sat demurely on one of the couches, watching him, rubbing her blotchy face exhaustedly with a lacy handkerchief. The pale sun streamed through the windows and glinted off the marble floor, making her white nightdress and Edmund's shirt glow wanly. Susan flinched as he whirled on her.

"NO! No, I won't just _listen!_ That scum has my baby sister, HE WILL DIE!"

"But Edmund-"

"DON'T '_BUT EDMUND' _ME! He hit you, that _alone_ is enough to make me want to hunt him down and nail his tongue to a post and leave him for the ravens!"

"Do you think that you're the only one who cares about this? The only one who wants to see him dead for his crimes? Because I do too, you know! I do, too-but you nearly _died!_ You've been so ill, and I couldn't bear it if something happened to you, Ed. I-I came so close to losing you, _so close-_if something happened-what if you're not back to your full strength yet, and it's too much? I couldn't-"

She pressed her handkerchief to her lips and forced back a sob. Edmund looked at her, reigning in his fury a little. He took a deep, steadying breath, promising himself that he would stop shouting, realising that he was frightening her. He padded across the room and sat down next to her, clasping her hands where they were folded in her lap. Neither of them were good at emotional outpourings, they were the more guarded two of the four. Peter and Lucy were the open ones, the ones who always had the right words in emotional situations, but neither were here, and so it fell to them to support one another.

"Susan, I really have to go. I have to find her and bring her back. I could never forgive myself if we lost her, and I knew that there was something I hadn't done that might have saved her."

"Then let me-"

"No, Su. You should stay here, in case she escapes and finds her way back to the Cair."

Her reply was softer than snowfall.

"It makes me feel so useless."

"I promise, Su, the moment I need anything, any help or support, I'll send for you. But I have to know that you're safe. I don't want you anywhere near him. Even if he hadn't tried to force himself on you and made you feel threatened and made you cut your hair off, I would still-why would you do that for me, anyway? He could have ruined you! He could have forced you to lie with him right _there, _and you would have_ let_ him? To save me? Susan, I-"

"And I would have done it a thousand times over if it meant that you would be safe, Ed. Don't you dare try and tell me that it wouldn't have been worth it, or that cutting my hair off wasn't. You mean an awful lot more to me than my _hair. _It will grow back."

Her voice was abruptly sharp and fiery, and Edmund's protests died on his lips. He detached a hand from their entwined knot of hands in Susan's lap and ran one of her short locks through his fingers wistfully.

"It was so beautiful."

Susan forced a smile.

"It will come again."

His face suddenly turned a sickly white, and his hand dropped limply from her hair. An awful realisation slammed into him and he swallowed hard, a crushing weight settling on his chest so that he couldn't breathe.

"Ed?"

Susan's voice was panicked at the disconcerting change in her brother.

"Ed, what's wrong?"

"Peter," he choked out, voice strangled.

Her brow creased in confusion and concern.

"What about him?"

"You told me that Galen said he'd had the assistance from Archenland killed. Peter's all alone up there. I vowed that I'd go to assist him, that I'd bring fresh troops and supplies. That was the plan. We knew his chance of survival up there with such a small force wasn't...wasn't large. If I go after Lucy, I won't be able to help Peter. I'll have to abandon him."

Susan's skin turned cold as Edmund's hopeless, searching gaze bored into her. A decision. Lucy or Peter. Perhaps Galen had intended to torture them this way from the moment he'd given her the antidote for Edmund.

"What will you do?" she asked, hushed.

"I don't-I can't-Susan, I promised him. But Lucy..."

"Peter," she began carefully, "is more capable of defending himself. We don't know what state his troops are in. It may not be as bad as we think."

"That's true."

"But Lucy... I don't think she is in immediate danger of death. He won't kill her; she's to be a 'present' for the Calormenes. Whatever happens, we have time with her. Whereas we may not with Peter."

"Yes."

Susan immediately felt disgusted with herself. How could she have spoken so coldly of them? Weighed them up as though they were different sets of silver for the banquet table? But then, looking at the different disadvantages of their situations was the only way to distinguish between them. How could they possibly choose which of their siblings they valued more?

Edmund was glaring into his lap, chewing his lip furiously. He lifted his head and met her eyes with resigned resolve.

"Lucy."

"What?"

"I'll-I'll go after Lucy. Peter would want me to. He and I-we agreed a long time ago that you two came first. He'd be furious if I let her go. I'll have to break my vow, but-"

His composure cracked, and he broke off with a pained sob. He was trying to contain his anguish for Susan's sake, but it felt as though he was being torn apart. Peter's face, golden and trusting and noble, kept flashing through his mind. His brother trusted him above any other and today, he would let him down. Both of them would give their lives in an instant for Lucy, but everything in him longed for one last chance to talk to Peter, to explain what had happened to him.

"Oh, Su, he'll think I've just left him to die..."

Susan pulled him against her and held him tight, her heart once again aching for her brother, for both her brothers. Edmund's arms snaked around her waist as he buried his face in her white neck and wetted her skin with his tears.

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><p>The air was thick and rank with the choking stink of burning ogre flesh. An acrid, billowing column of black smoke towered up into the red, blistering evening sky, as the bodies on the enormous pyre crumbled into ash.<p>

It was done.

The evils of the northern wilds had at last been vanquished, against all the odds that had stood against them from the outset. The victorious Narnians and Archenlanders stood before the pyre and watched in exhausted triumph as the creatures that had slain their countrymen disintegrated. The victory had come at a dear price. There was not a soldier there who had not bled into the very earth on which they now burnt their enemies, who had not paid in sweat and pain to still be drawing breath that evening, for the freedom from threat that victory brought. The dead victors' pyre from earlier that evening had burnt low and was glowing quietly as the ashes were lifted by the wind and fluttered away across the plain, bearing their souls away to Aslan's country.

The enemy corpses had been laid face down on the pyre, for they had acted against Aslan by their misdeeds, and so their souls would not depart into the east as the souls of the victors' comrades-in-arms would. The battle had rivalled Beruna in its scale and desperation. They had made a final charge that would either kill them all or bring them relief and allow them to finish quickly here and travel south. Peter had longed for Edmund's cunning strategic mind, and for the strength he drew from him, and the strength that came to him through needing to be strong for his brother. He was used to being without his sisters on the battlefield, indeed, he preferred it that way. He missed them painfully during campaign, of course, but nothing was more distracting than the need to watch the girls like a hawk lest any harm should come to them. Neither he nor Edmund could focus on the battle, the urge to protect overpowering them both. But together, the two of them plotted and planned and shot and fought like a well-oiled machine. They were a lethal unit with almost unmatched skill in battle, the songs of their swords harmonizing perfectly, and if one fell, the other would defend him with a bestial viciousness that they were renowned for. They always worked as a pair, their weaknesses covered by the other's strengths, but Peter had stood alone before the plan of battle that morning, and it had felt like half his soul was missing.

He stood closest to the snarling fire, glaring remorselessly into its depths. Mud and dried blood crusted on his face, and fresh rivulets of red trickled over it from his nose and mouth. His armour was scratched and dented beyond recognition, his tabard torn and dirt-spattered, and his shield had taken such a battering that almost all of the metal would have to be reworked. There was barely an inch of his skin that was not caked in filth. His golden hair hung in dark, sweat-slicked strands and his left upper arm and shoulder were swathed in grubby bandages that began to turn red even as the fire blazed, a tiny blot appearing first and then swelling until nearly the whole cloth was dyed the grisly crimson of the High King's blood. His breathing was laboured, his expression grim, and he had walked with a slight limp when he had gone to light the pyre. Rhindon hung loosely from his hand, point resting wearily on the ground. It gleamed dangerously in the firelight, stained to the hilt with enemy blood.

Brighend stood a few paces behind in a similar state. His dark hair hung wild and matted and thick with his own blood in some places, and his armour was in a dismal state. His eyes glittered menacingly, not quite having lost the killer's glint they had taken on in battle. The orange flickers from the fire danced along the nicked edges of his enormous axe. His face was flushed and shining with sweat, and his breaths wheezed. Some broken ribs were suspected. Despite his unpleasant conduct, he had fought bravely and viciously in the battle.

Rook stood further back still, with the other survivors, watching the enemy burn with a soldier's hardness in his eyes. He was just as dirty as Peter and Brighend, just as bloody, although whether it was his own or not he couldn't really tell. He had received few injuries during the battle. The professional soldiers had done all they could to protect him. he would never forget the way the life flickered and died in the face of a Satyr who'd taken a fatal blow for him. The image seared through his mind whenever he closed his eyes. He surveyed the pyre with a maturity and a severity that did not belong in the face of a twelve-year-old. Watching him, you could almost mistake him for a seasoned warrior.

It did not feel like a victory. Too much had been lost.

The troops watched in heavy silence, no joy in the air, only a sense of finality. Eventually, when the fire's roar had dimmed and diminished, Peter turned his back on it smartly and loped past Brighend through the crowd of soldiers, who quickly shrank back to let him through. They understood-for now, they were dismissed. A curt command came from the High King as he strode lopsidedly past the last of them.

"We ride south."

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><p><strong>AN: **Thanks for reading, reviews are much appreciated!


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: **For some reason, this chapter was not coming easily. Still, I am soon going to see a stage production of LWW in London-I'm so excited! It should provide lots of inspiration ;) Anyway, on with the chapter. Enjoy!

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><p>The night in Narnia had never seemed to Lucy to be truly black. There was always a comforting light somewhere, twinkling through household windows, and while the nights were certainly restful and comfortingly dark, the moon often lit the world in her strange, ghostly paleness, and the stars would glisten in the streams and lakes. The nights were blue and grey and purple, but never really black.<p>

Tonight, however, the night seemed to have turned against her. It did not feel as though she was in Narnia at all. The blackness crushed around her, suffocating her, making her forget all of the friendliness that usually went with a Narnian night, and she didn't have the faintest idea where exactly she was, but she was fairly certain that Galen had doubled back and gone deliberately in circles to disorientate her.

Still, she refused to regret what she had done. Galen had offered her a choice: either she went with him quietly, or he would take Edmund or Susan by force. It had been an easy decision. It was not often that she got the chance to protect her older siblings, as they were all so fixated on not letting her risk herself for them or get hurt, but on the rare occasion that she could, by Aslan, she would do everything in her power to keep them safe. It was not, after all, the first time she had been kidnapped, although she was admittedly more frightened of Galen than she had been of her previous abductors.

The bark of the tree was rough against Lucy's back, and scratched her whenever she moved. The winter chill was beginning to set in, and she trembled in her flimsy clothing. The ropes gnawed at her skin through the cloth of her ragged night dress, keeping her tied up against the trunk. It was painful, but she would not give even a hint of being in pain. She would not give Galen the opportunity for further satisfaction. She schooled her features carefully into cool indifference, as though this was a situation she found herself in every other week and was not remotely frightened by. She may only have been sixteen, but she had been a queen for eight years and was determined to behave as such. The darkness pressed around the small pool of light provided by a weak fire. Galen's eyes shone at her from the other side of the fire, and she had never felt so alone. He tossed a hunk of bread at her carelessly.

"Eat up, girl. We can't have you wasting away before you get to meet my Tarkhaan, can we?"

Lucy curled her lip and glared at him though the flames, lifting an eyebrow haughtily, making her expression as unpleasant and superior as she could, as she had seen Edmund do before on occasion. That expression had made both hardened criminals and formidable lords grovel at his feet. She was completely helpless, but he had already told her that she was intended as a gift, so she knew he could not harm her. That left her only one thing she could do against him-taunt him. It helped her fight off her fear to have something else to focus on. She had been through this before.

"Your Majesty."

"What?"

"The correct term of address for a queen is 'Your Majesty,' not 'girl.'"

Galen lunged around the fire, and before she could blink a dagger point was under her chin and his face so close she could smell his sour breath.

"Watch it, girl! I'll not have any lip from you."

Lucy forced down her fright and gazed at the soft shine of the blade.

"You won't kill me," she sniffed disdainfully.

"Oh? And what makes you so sure of that, _girl_?"

"You won't have a present for your Tarkhaan then."

Galen twitched with annoyance, irritated that his dramatic threatening had been so easily undermined, then scuttled back to the other side of his fire.

"It's not a very good plan, you know," she continued loudly, feigning confidence.

"It's a flawless plan," he snapped.

"It isn't. You see, you made a huge mistake."

"What was that, then, hm? There are no flaws in my plan!"

Suddenly she felt real confidence swell in her chest, real faith. She had been chosen by the Lion, and she stood with her siblings between his Paws. They were protected. She had faith that He would protect Peter in the north, and Edmund and Susan were safe, and she could not be harmed by Galen, at least for now. He would do something. He would help them. This man clearly thought Narnia weak and unprotected. He had no idea of the storm he would wake.

"You forgot Aslan."

"Aslan? Pah! I didn't see your precious Lion anywhere when I took you! Where was he when I saw to the destruction of those Archenlandish troops, and therefore your brother? Where was he when I took whatever I wanted from your sister, where was he when I turned your other brother to stone? Hmm? There is no Aslan. A clever ploy, maybe, to strengthen your pathetic claim to Narnia's throne."

"He likes us to help ourselves as much as we can. But if we need Him, He will find a way. He protects us, always. And there's another stupid thing you did..."

"What?" he barked. Lucy dared to give him a wicked smile.

"You underestimated us. You let us wake Edmund-"

"Only so I could savour making him watch as I destroy you and your sister later!"

"They'll come for me, you know, sooner or later. The Narnians. General Oreius and the army. Maybe they'll send out the Dogs after you. Maybe they already have. We have so many allies, Galen. The Birds and the trees, we have nature on our side. If you're really unlucky, then they'll send the Black Watch to find me. Surely you've heard of them? Our ruthless Spies. You never know, they could be watching right now."

"Stop it! Be quiet!"

"They'll come for me, and they'll find me, and I almost feel sorry for you. Edmund will come for me, and Peter if he can, and maybe even Susan. And when they do, I bet you'll wish you let Susan knife you back at Cair. It would be a picnic compared to what they'll do to you for this," she snarled.

Galen sat back, breathing hard. "They can't. They can't find us. No way to find us..." he muttered to himself uneasily. Lucy allowed herself a twisted grin of satisfaction. She had shredded his nerves as much as hers were. She leaned back against the tree and closed her eyes, struggling towards sleep in her discomfort. They would find her, she told herself, but with less than half the conviction she had spoken to Galen with.

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><p>By sundown, the remainder of the Narnian army was packed up and ready to leave, their blades sharpened and their anger whetted, with Edmund at their head. The courtyard swarmed with suits of armour and supply panniers, all presided over by Oreius booming out orders. They would leave that night in sections, each scouring a different part of southern Narnia for Lucy until the Dogs found a firm lead.<p>

Susan had been hustled up to her chambers by her ladies-in-waiting after she and Edmund had decided what to do, and in a flurry of activity they had dressed her in a crimson winter gown, powdered over the redness in her face and twisted up her hair cleverly to make it look as though it was merely tied up into an elegant knot, rather than shorn off. They had dug out her jewellery and adorned her, and set her crown on her head, with Mrs Beaver clucking and fussing maternally all the while. The Beavers had come to stay at Cair Paravel to offer support after Edmund was taken ill, and had decided to stay for a while so that Susan might not be so alone.

Now the ladies-in-waiting secured a snug fur mantle about her shoulders against the increasing harshness of the winter, and buzzed around her as she descended into the courtyard to find Edmund. She once more glided calmly and regally down the steps. It was absolutely essential that she should appear utterly in control, especially after her display that morning, to provide reassurance for her subjects. Edmund was waiting for her at the base of the steps with Phillip at his shoulder. She came to a halt in front of him, and the ladies with her all stopped too and stared at them. Edmund raised his eyebrows at them slightly, and Susan turned and gave them a pointed look, so that they took the hint and retreated halfway back up the steps.

"Women," Edmund snorted playfully, trying to be cheerful for her. She laughed half-heartedly and swatted at his arm. There was no time to care about appearances now, so she wrapped her arms around his middle and tucked her head under his chin, taking a moment to marvel at his height, and wonder when he got so tall. Her little brother was almost as tall as Peter now. She felt him return her embrace tightly and drop a kiss into her hair.

"Be safe," she whispered.

She drew back a little to take a good look at him. He gave a small smile and nodded.

"Don't worry, Su. I'll bring her home."

"And the Black Watch?" she murmured discreetly.

"Already gone. They're on her trail," he muttered back.

"Good," she breathed. If there was anyone who could find Lucy, it was Edmund's Spies.

She kissed his cheek and then stepped out of his arms, smiling wetly. Phillip plodded forward and nosed her arm gently.

"Not to worry, Your Majesty. I'll look after him."

"I certainly hope so, Phillip!" she laughed a laugh that seemed to be part sob, too. A bugle-call resounded suddenly around the courtyard, and there was an abrupt burst of movement as the soldiers began to mount their horses. Edmund turned to her, slightly panicked.

"I'm sorry, Su, I have to go-"

"Yes, yes, go on-"

He swung up onto Phillip and then looked down at her, reaching out. She clasped his extended hand in both of her own and kissed it, striding alongside Phillip as he started to walk away from the palace. Suddenly gripped by a wild fear of being left alone by all her siblings, she cried out to her brother.

"I love you!"

Their hands were ripped apart as Phillip began to speed up to get to the front of the lines of troops, and Susan stood watching as Edmund tossed her a grin over his shoulder.

"I love you too, Su!"

Then he was gone, trotting briskly to the head of the line, his armour shining in the light of the rising moon. Susan stood rooted to the spot in that courtyard until the last departing soldier had vanished from sight. Then she turned back to the steps and made her way wearily up them towards the main palace doors, pausing when she reached the ladies-in-waiting. She turned to address Lady Arvella, the Dryad housekeeper of the palace.

"Arvella, please inform the Head Cook and the footmen waiting at table tonight that I will be dining alone in the small private dining room."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

That particular dining room was one usually used for breakfast when Cair Paravel was not hosting any visitors. It was light and informal, and contained a round table with only four chairs. Susan ate there in silence that night, and whatever direction she looked in, there was an empty place where one of her siblings should have sat.

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><p><strong>AN: **Poor Susan... Thanks for reading!


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N: **Stage LWW was fantastic! They made it a bit of a musical, so there was the odd bit of singing and dancing, but it worked somehow. Brilliant special effects, the Witch gave a fantastic performance, and I was interested by their portrayal of Edmund-more a slightly irritating boy who was a victim of the Witch than a little beast who realises the error of his ways. Very folklore-ish. Anyway, on with the chapter. Enjoy!

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><p>Peter's progress south was far swifter than it had been north, there being no monsters to stop and overcome, and the troops moving with practiced efficiency. They travelled like fugitives, all speed and no sound, with a solemnity that came of too long at war. Every song had been sung at least three times over, every topic of conversation covered thoroughly and then covered again, and now there was nothing left to talk or sing about, and the soldiers slogged on in thick silence.<p>

There was, however, a lightness to their steps that had not been there before, and their eyes shone a little, and secret smiles lurked in the corners of many mouths. They were back on good Narnian soil now, and the very air brought new freshness to their faces. As they topped a steep hill, Narnia unexpectedly unrolled herself before them, and their eyes swept across the land of their birth, and many laughs and exclamations of joy broke from the lips of the previously stoic soldiers. They stood on the foothills of the mountains above the Beruna battlefield, where Peter and his siblings had fought to free Narnia eight years ago. But their leader's eyes were caught on one thing only, a shimmering vision of white walls and towers, spires and buttresses, away to the south-east, standing out starkly against the blueness of the sea as a white rose might stand against the sky.

Rook trotted up to Peter, grinning boyishly.

"Wow, Beruna! Is that the field where you fought your first battle, just down there? Against the White Witch? I can't believe this is the actual place! ...Peter?"

Peter had not acknowledged him or even looked at him. Instead he gazed steadfastly away towards the Eastern Sea, with such a vulnerable longing in his eyes that it made Rook shiver. He followed the High King's line of sight, and noticed the pearly castle perched on the cliffs with a thrill of amazement.

"Cair Paravel," Rook said softly in wonder.

"Home," Peter replied in a hoarse whisper.

He finally looked down at Rook and gave a tense smile that looked painful.

"My family are there."

"Tough, King. Straight to Archenland you said, no detours."

Brighend trudged up to them and gave Peter a hard look. Up until now, every trial of the campaign had been met by the High King with a grim resolve, showing no signs of pain or weakness. This was the first crack he had shown.

"Please," Peter interrupted him as he turned to go, an uncharacteristically needy note entering his voice. "Please, it won't take long. It'll be a short visit. Just to let them know I'm all right. It's been such a long time," he finished quietly.

Rook joined in, hating the sadness in the King he now thought of as his, hoping to make him smile that special Peter-smile again that made the sun seem to shine brighter.

"Please can we go, Brighend? I want to see Cair Paravel."

Brighend and Peter stared at each other for a long time, Rook glancing nervously between them. Something in Brighend's countenance flickered, and then it hardened again.

"No diversions. If we go, it could be goodness knows how long before we get off again. Archenland is threatened. You're coming to help. You swore."

He turned abruptly and marched away from them. Peter dropped his eyes to the floor, squeezing them shut to force back the tears, balling his hands into fists to try and find an outlet for the tension in his chest. He could not allow the troops to see him cry, nor Rook, and certainly not Brighend. Rook looked up at him in sad bewilderment, confused and uncertain. He had never seen Peter shaken, and it was a shock to him to realise that the legend stood before him wept like any other person.

"Peter?" he inquired, reaching up tentatively to touch his sleeve. Peter breathed in sharply, and then lifted his head again, eyes clear. With eight years' worth of experience, he hid his fierce disappointment and melancholy, and with a speed that was startling to Rook, arranged his features carefully into impenetrable blankness. His body relaxed, and his fists loosened.

"Yes?" he replied calmly, with no trace of a tremor.

"Oh, nothing, I was just..."

Peter looked down at him and smiled a convincingly real smile, and it was a relief to Rook that he dispelled that horrible blankness. He squeezed the boy's shoulder fondly.

"It's all right. I know."

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><p>Lucy stooped down before the little chattering spring that the River Rush originated from, and splashed it over her face. Galen stood behind her, fidgeting.<p>

"Hurry up, girl!"

She sighed and straightened up. At least now she had some perception of where they were. She knew that they were headed for Archenland, and that that would entail a long trek on bare feet through the woods, and then either west towards the major pass through the mountains, or straight south along the more perilous but more direct route. She imagined that Galen would probably take her by the latter, as they were far less likely to be seen or recognised, and it would be more difficult for someone to follow them.

"It's 'Your Majesty,'" she muttered crossly. "Not 'girl.'"

Galen gave her a vicious shove between the shoulder blades, which sent her tripping forward a few steps in front of him.

"You're no Queen where you're headed, girl. So I suggest you get used to being just like all the rest of us," Galen sneered.

"Once a Queen of Narnia, always a Queen of Narnia," she said softly under her breath.

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><p>"King Peter! Is it really you? Oh, sire! You're alive! All Narnia will rejoice!"<p>

Peter glanced around himself in surprise, but could not place the voice. Rook had scampered off somewhere, and he had been left alone to brood until this frantic, squeaky voice had interrupted him.

"Down here, sire!"

He looked down at his feet, and there sat a rather plump Talking Squirrel, with an almost ridiculously large grin on its face. He had been out of Narnia for far too long, as down was usually the first place one looked if one was addressed by an unknown voice.

"Ah. Forgive me, good Squirrel."

"Oh, Your Majesty, there is nothing to forgive! Indeed, I am simply thrilled to see you alive and well! This is most glad news! I must spread the word!"

"Wait! Not so fast, sir. What are you doing in the mountains of Beruna?"

"There were rumours, Majesty, that your army had been sighted returning. But no one was quite sure whether it really was your army, and not some kind of invasion from the north, so we decided that one of us ought to be sent to see, but nobody wanted to go in case there was a threat, and first we drew straws but it was a very important Squirrel who drew the shortest, and he said that he couldn't possibly go because he was needed at home, so we tried again, but it didn't work that time either because everybody was fighting about which straw was shortest, and then..."

The Squirrel continued to rattle out his tale, straying increasingly far from the question. Peter began to feel the threat of a headache behind his eyes.

"Excuse me, good Squirrel, might I ask that you perhaps cut your tale down to the most vital details?"

The Squirrel squirmed a little in embarrassment. "We needed someone to check that the army really was yours, so I was sent."

Peter gave a relieved sigh. Endearing though Squirrels often were, he did not have the time or patience to stand listening to this one prattle.

"Thank you. Have you any knowledge of my siblings? Has anything happened at Cair Paravel?"

The Squirrel's enthusiasm and cheerfulness suddenly evaporated.

"Of course, Your Majesty wouldn't know..."

"Wouldn't know what?" Peter's voice was abruptly terse and searching.

"Not-not long after you left, sire, King Edmund was taken ill. There were rumours that it was the Witch's vengeance from beyond the grave, because the Queens wouldn't let anyone see him except expert Healers and a few high-up court members. People said he was turning to stone. But then he miraculously recovered, and that very night Queen Susan's hair was cut short, and the morning after she ran out into the courtyard screaming that Queen Lucy had been kidnapped. No one really knows what's going on, sire, these are mostly rumours. It's being kept very quiet. King Edmund took the rest of the army that very night to search for her. People have started up all that nonsense about the Black Watch again, sire, but of course, they don't really exist."

The Squirrel looked up at Peter knowledgeably, as though they were two grown-ups in a house of children and were the only ones that knew the Tooth Fairy wasn't real. Peter allowed himself a wry grin, and made a mental note to tell Edmund that their people thought the Black Watch was just a scare story. He would love that.

"Hold on, what? Queen Lucy has been kidnapped?"

"Indeed, sire. The messenger from Archenland who came to the court and told them that the Archenlandish troops weren't coming to help you, he's the prime suspect. Apparently he vanished the night Queen Lucy disappeared, but Queen Susan said that he was allied with the Calormenes."

In a moment of clarity, a lot of things slid into place in Peter's mind forming an unpleasant picture. A messenger had told the court Archenland weren't coming to him, and a messenger had told the Archenlandish troops to go straight north and miss out Cair Paravel, meaning that Edmund wouldn't join them. The troops were killed by Calormenes, and this messenger was allied with them. Edmund had been ill. Susan lost her hair. Lucy had been kidnapped. All four of them were being targeted by these Calormenes, and it wasn't Archenland they wanted. It was Narnia.

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><p>As her maids finished bustling about her chambers that night, Susan waved them off cheerily, pretending to be absorbed in reading the book in her lap. She listened for them going down the corridor and into their sitting room, and then out of the door to the public parts of the castle, and as soon as she was sure they were gone, she snapped the book shut and tossed it onto her bedside table. She pulled her covers back and slid out of bed, darting across her carpeted floor and out into the corridor, shivering as her feet came into contact with the winter-chilled stone. Crossing gingerly to Peter's door, she slipped inside the dark, cold room, uninhabited for so long, and started to dig around in his drawers. She quickly found what she was looking for-another old shirt of his, long enough on her to be a loose nightdress. Discarding the frilly affair her handmaidens had stuffed her into that evening, she pulled it over her head, smiling at the faint scent of it that was so familiar to her. It hung down to her thighs, and the sleeves flopped past her hands. She rolled them briskly up to her elbows and then made for the door, striding quickly down to Lucy's room to avoid chilling her feet. There, she found the old stuffed lion toy hidden snugly in Lucy's sheets, and took it across to Edmund's room.<p>

She did not take anything from Edmund's room, but instead clambered into his bed, curling up around the lion toy. It helped to have something of each of them with her while she slept. When a chamber maid came to wake her the next morning and found her snuggled in King Edmund's bed, wrapped around one of Queen Lucy's old toys and wearing a shirt of King Peter's, she hadn't the heart to wake her.

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><p><strong>AN: **Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it! Reviews are much appreciated.


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N: **I'm sorry if this is a bit late! I've had a bit of writer's block, which is incredibly annoying. Anyway, enjoy!

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><p>The winter was beginning to set in, and while there had not yet been any snow, the ground was hard with frost and the wind was cruel. Edmund sat heavily in Phillip's saddle as empty report after worthless search was brought before him. This Galen had covered his tracks extremely well, and there had not yet been any trace of either him or Lucy from the official search. He would very much have liked to kick something, but the only thing available to him at that moment was Phillip, who would not take at all kindly to it, so he refrained. After listening finally to a large Basset Hound's mournful confirmation that his area of the forest had yielded nothing that day, he swung out of the saddle and turned away from the crowd of Dogs to talk to a Dwarf that had sidled into their clearing like a shadow, unnoticed by everyone else.<p>

The Dwarf nodded respectfully as Edmund neared him, then flashed him a small black tattoo of a sacrificial dagger on his left wrist.

"How goes it?" Edmund muttered to him.

"We've not caught them yet. Followed a scent for ages in the woods near the Stone Table, but it came to nothing. We think the swine is doubling back on himself to throw us off, but he probably followed the course of the River Rush. The odd white thread on the bushes, things like that. Queen Lucy was wearing her nightdress when she was taken, wasn't she? Problem is, tracks are always hard to follow near rivers. Stuff gets washed away."

"Yes, I know," Edmund gave a frustrated sigh, and raked a hand through his hair. "Isn't there something else you can do?"

"He's almost certainly headed for the Calormene encampment not far from Anvard. We can send word to King Lune and post sentries on all the major passes over the mountains, but it'll be hard to follow him if he decides to take a more direct route."

"All right, then. Do that. Do anything you like, if it will help you find Lucy. You know I can put the army at your disposal, if you need it."

The Dwarf prickled, as though he thought associating with the army beneath him. "Best not, sire. Too loud, too ungainly. Nothing says 'we're coming to get you' quite like an army stampeding after you. We need more subtlety. He's a slippery one. I don't want him knowing we're on his trail-when we get on his trail-because he'll be more cautious then."

Edmund nodded. "Go. Keep looking. Tell the Watch to search through the night."

The Dwarf bowed quickly, and then melted back into the forest.

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><p>For the first time in what seemed like years, Susan felt as though she could fly. A diminutive whirlwind had hurtled into Cair Paravel yesterday, seizing on whomever it saw and proclaiming that Peter was back in Narnia, alive and well, and what's more, not far from the castle. It turned out that the messenger was a hysterically excited Squirrel who had spoken to his High King near Beruna the previous day. They had sent scouts, and sure enough, a tattered returning army was making its way south into Narnia, flying their home standard.<p>

Shoving the governing of Narnia and the upkeep of the castle temporarily into the hands of Oreius, Tumnus and the High Council, she had donned her winter riding habit and set out as swiftly as she was able towards Beruna with an armed escort. As the evening was beginning to draw in and the familiar scarlet banners rose on the horizon before her, she urged her mount into a gallop, surging ahead of her guards, who called half-heartedly for her to slow down.

It was only a few minutes later, although it felt like a lifetime, that she trotted breathlessly into the camp, having left her escort far behind on the plains. It was a dirty, ragged place, evidence of hardship was clear. Everywhere there were bewildered and excited exclamations from the troops whose Queen had just unexpectedly arrived in their midst. She leapt off her horse and half a dozen soldiers rushed forwards to take the reins, all bowing almost comically low.

A grinning Satyr approached her, also bowing, and kissing her hand firmly. "Your Majesty, what a pleasure! It's an absolute delight to have you visit our camp, although I'm afraid we're hardly fitted out for entertaining a lady such as yourself."

Susan waved off his concern impatiently. "I'm sure I've dealt with worse, good Satyr. Perhaps you might take me to my brother?"

The Satyr gave an understanding smile. "Certainly, Majesty. May I take your gloves?"

Susan absent-mindedly stripped off her riding gloves and passed them to the Satyr, who then began to weave between bedrolls and campfires and stacks of weaponry, shooing away the soldiers who gathered to stare at Susan. She was the first female and indeed the first clean person they had seen in some time.

She felt an enormous weight lift from her chest as she laid eyes on him, seated unceremoniously on an overturned crate, golden head bent, frowning at a grubby map. She smiled so widely her cheeks ached, but not nearly enough for her to want to force down the thrill of glee that rose in her chest on seeing her older brother. The Satyr stepped forward and cleared his throat spectacularly.

"Sire, announcing Her Majesty the Queen-"

Peter's head shot up and a brilliant grin split his face.

"Susan!"

He jumped up from the crate and in a few strides had engulfed her in an almost crushing embrace, her feet dangling in the air as he lifted her clean off the ground, clinging to his neck and giggling. It seemed as though the pain that had been throbbing constantly in her chest dulled and faded as he held her. Peter was safe, and Edmund would find Lucy. Perhaps they would be all right. She was expecting him to set her back on her feet, but he didn't. He was half armoured and the odd cold plate of metal was sticking into her, and he was extremely dirty, but for once she didn't care at all, and was very happy to be quite literally trapped in his arms.

"What's going on here, then?"

Peter released Susan and she blinked up at a huge, bear-like man, squinting at her through beetle black eyes. He would have frightened her a little, but Peter's hand rested firm in the small of her back.

"I'll thank you to show a little more respect to my royal sister, Brighend." Peter's words were tight and snappish. "This is Her Majesty the Queen Susan of Narnia."

Susan extended a white hand almost without thinking, and Brighend stared at it a moment before taking it and brushing it with a bristly kiss.

"Honoured, Your Majesty," he said gruffly. Much as he disliked showing deference to the monarchs of Narnia, Susan was a lady, and therefore commanded a certain level of respect.

"Likewise," Susan replied graciously. Brighend grunted, and stumped off. She spun around quickly to clasp Peter's hands and stretch up to kiss his cheek, her attention instantly back on him.

"I'm so glad you're safe," she said in a rush of relief.

"Likewise," he teased gently.

There didn't seem to be anything more they could say in such a public place, surrounded by staring soldiers, so Peter squeezed her hands and then dropped them.

"I've got someone I'd like you to meet. Wait here, I'll go and fetch him."

She nodded and gave him a glowing smile, before he turned and began to stride purposefully through the camp. She wandered a few steps to look out over the view, appreciating the toss of the wind in her hair and skirts. Alone in the castle without her siblings, it did begin to get a little claustrophobic.

"It's a nice view, isn't it?"

Susan turned to see the large, hairy man Peter had introduced her to earlier.

"Indeed it is."

"Hmm, yes. Very pretty. With all the hills, and the like."

She resisted rolling her eyes, easily recognising the purposeful small talk.

"You have a question for me."

Brighend glanced at her in surprise, and then nodded.

"Your King Peter wanted to go to Cair Paravel, before you came. Dead set on it, he was. But he swore that he'd come straight to Archenland, and I refused to give him lenience in his vow. I was worried about slowing down the campaign," he added defensively, clearly not wanting a beautiful woman to think him unpleasant. Susan nodded impartially.

"He just-the way he reacted. I've never seen him show any weakness before, and he acted as though I'd done something terrible to him."

"All people are afraid of something, Master Brighend," Susan replied softly, gazing out over the view.

Brighend grimaced, and persisted. "Still, he's the High King of Narnia, isn't he? He shouldn't be putting on that sort of a display. Cleared it up quickly and no mistake, but still..."

Susan gave a short sigh, realising that this man would not be put off. "You overstep your boundaries, man of Archenland. It is not for you to question the character of Narnia's High King, but I understand your concern as a soldier, and for that reason I will answer you. Peter sees himself very much as a protector, both of our family and of our country. He cannot afford to fear as other men do, in order to protect us."

"I'm not sure I follow you," Brighend hesitated, and then-"m'Lady."

"When we were young it was petty things, like-oh, like spiders, or the dark, or great heights. He refused to be afraid of them, so that he could protect us against them. So it is now, but with greater threats. He is a fine soldier, because he fears neither pain, nor hardship, nor peril. But as I said before, Master Brighend, all people are afraid of something. He can have no fear of that which would cause harm because he must protect from it, and that leaves him but one thing to be afraid of." She smiled gently. "Failure. His great fear is that he will fail to protect us, that we will be hurt or unhappy. Therefore, he also fears being in a position that does not allow him to protect us, for instance, being separated from us. Hence his displeasure at not being able to call on me at Cair Paravel. You tapped into his only fear. Worry not, Master Brighend. He will not fail you on the battlefield."

"Oh. Ah. Um, thank you, m'Lady." Brighend caught sight of a beaming Peter approaching, Rook in tow, and sloped off awkwardly.

"He didn't give you any trouble, I hope, Su?" Peter frowned at Brighend's back.

"Oh, no, not at all. Who is your friend?"

Peter grinned, clapping the sparrow-like boy on the back proudly. "This is Rook, Su. He's been acting as my page for the campaign. Rook, this is my sister, Queen Susan. You remember I told you about her archery?"

The boy nodded dumbly, eyes like saucers as Susan bent down and offered him her hand, feeling instantly maternal. He all but swooned in the cloud of her perfume, and instead of kissing her outstretched hand, shook it uncertainly.

"How old are you, Rook?"

"Oooooh," managed the boy, staring at her face in awe. She heard Peter bite back a chuckle above her and Rook flushed as red as a Fox's tail. "I-I mean, I'm twelve, Your Majesty."

"Twelve? Gracious, that makes you nearly a man," Susan told him seriously, straightening up and casting a critical eye over him as he puffed up proudly. "You've been looking after Peter well, I hope?"

"Oh, yes, Your Majesty," Rook nodded vigorously, and the shine in his eyes slid smoothly from utter awe to devoted adoration, and with that, he quietly and uncomplainingly joined the long list of men in love with Queen Susan.

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><p><strong>AN: **Heh, poor Rook never stood a chance. Thanks for reading!


	17. Chapter 17

**A/N: **Enjoy.

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><p>Galen was getting increasingly paranoid. He barely slept, spending the nights gazing wild-eyed at the rocky slopes around them. They had plunged into the mountains a day or two ago, and a little hope had ebbed from Lucy's mind. She knew that people would be looking for her, but out in the barren, mountainous wilderness, it began to feel as though she could walk here forever and nobody would ever find her.<p>

"Hurry it up! We have to keep moving!"

Lucy sighed, and trudged on. The bottoms of her feet were scratched and bruised, her toenails bleeding, and it sometimes felt as though the whole of the soles of her feet were one giant rubbing blister, but as the days of marching south wore relentlessly on, her feet began to harden and toughen. But here in the rocky mountains, they were suddenly painful and tender again. She could only pray that Galen would not get to Archenland. Neither the army nor the Black Watch could move as openly there, and the terrain was unfamiliar, making it even harder for them to find her. Galen stopped suddenly, and yanked at the rope around her raw wrists.

"Right, we're going back that way."

The process of doubling back and going in circles was almost continuous, and Lucy bit back a tearful sigh. She would trust in Aslan. He would keep her safe.

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><p>The change that the presence of a woman, and their Queen at that, wrought in Peter's weary troops was quite astonishing. Suddenly from nowhere wooden stools appeared, along with comfortable blankets, clean faces and faultless manners. Wineskins and titbits of food were offered to her from every direction, all of which Susan politely refused, not wanting to consume their meagre supplies, except a sip of wine from a Faun officer's wineskin. The soldiers dug songs from their memories and cleansed them of any vulgarity before enthusiastically performing them for the delight of their Queen and the amusement of their King. The camp rung with laughter, and soldier after soldier came before Susan to kneel at her feet and kiss her soft hand. As the sun sank low beneath the glittering Eastern Sea and the merriment died down a little, Susan and Peter at last excused themselves to go for a walk. They strolled out of the camp and found a small copse of trees, where they settled in the cool shadows and the last rays of the sun.<p>

"Thank you. For coming, I mean. You raised morale no end," Peter said quietly. "And it was killing me to know you were so close, and I couldn't see you."

Susan smiled and let out a shaky sigh. "I'm just glad you're safe. I'll be thanking Aslan every night for a year that He has protected you. I didn't think-I wasn't sure if you would come back."

She looked at the ground and Peter saw the dying sunlight glitter in her eyes as they welled up with tears. He drew her wordlessly into his arms where he was sat leaning against a tree trunk, and she relaxed against him the way she never could have done in the camp, surrounded by troops.

"Su, what happened to you? Your hair...the Squirrel said it had been cut short, but all he told me was a garbled string of rumours."

He lazily lifted a lock of her sleek bob cut and let it slide through his fingers, surprised at how quickly it slipped away from him. Susan's handmaidens had quickly smoothed out her ragged haircut and made it presentable, but her head still felt strangely light without her heavy waterfall of dark tresses.

"I thought I was trading it for Edmund's life," she replied, sounding far too small and young to her own ears.

"_What?"_

Susan told him everything, from Galen's arrival to Lucy's kidnapping and Edmund's departure to search for her. By the end she was sobbing, dampening Peter's shirt, but the words kept bubbling out of her throat in an unstoppable stream.

"...and then he took Lucy-I just woke up and she wasn't there, and I couldn't believe how _foolish _I'd been-and then Edmund woke up as well and he left to look for her, and I wanted to go too, but he said I should stay at the castle in case she escaped, and then I was all on my own and I was so scared and I thought you wouldn't ever come back..."

"Oh, Su," Peter murmured gently into her hair, "I'll always come back for you, if you need me." He pressed a kiss to her forehead to seal his promise. "_I _should have been there, protecting you all from all this-" he added to himself in an angry mutter.

"No, Peter," Susan cut him off before he could begin a self-deprecating rant. "You were protecting Narnia from other dangers."

"I'm so proud of you, Su. You handled it brilliantly. Even though I can't believe you'd go_ alone _to his rooms after what he did to you! He could have made you do it, Su! You might have...You could've..." he trailed off, and then chuckled, the desperate concern vanishing. "It sounds like something I'd do. I hope you're not picking up bad habits."

Susan giggled into his shirt, and then surfaced to slide a loose gold ring from her finger.

"Here, Peter," she said softly, lifting his large, tanned right hand in her smaller, whiter one. "This is yours by rights. I am no longer acting as the High King's Regent." She pushed the ring gently onto his middle finger, where it settled comfortably over the pale circle of skin that marked the place it usually sat in.

Peter smiled warmly at her, flexing the muscles in his fingers to re-accustom to the feel of the cool band of metal. Then his brow furrowed and he heaved a heavy, reluctant sigh. "I suppose I'd better get you back to the camp. The guards will want to set off before night comes."

"Let me stay with you." The words tumbled out of her mouth before she knew what she was going to say. Then, her resolve hardening: "Please, Peter. I want to stay with you. I can send the guards to fetch my things. I left Cair Paravel in the High Council's hands. I can't stand it all alone in the castle, and I want to help."

Her hand fisted determinedly in the fabric of his shirt. Peter looked pained and sighed deeply again. "Su, you know how dangerous it is. You've already been through so much, I can't put you in even more danger. And besides, an unruly troop of soldiers is no place for a lady."

"But I want to help!" she burst out. "Please, don't send me back. Let me come with you. I can handle the soldiers and the danger, I don't care. I want to help Archenland and find Lucy. And I don't want us to separate again."

Peter looked at her seriously, but she could tell that his refusals were crumbling. She knelt up to take his face in her hands and look imploringly into his eyes. "Please, Peter. Don't make me leave you."

He stared back at her for a long moment, then blinked in a resigned sort of way. "All right, you can stay. But you have to promise to stick close to me. I don't want anything to happen to you."

Susan squealed and flung her arms around his neck, squeezing him tight as she felt him laugh and hug her back. "I promise!"

* * *

><p>The next time, it was a surly-looking Weasel that sloped unnoticed out of the bushes to where Edmund was unpacking his bedroll.<p>

"Sire," he coughed in a low voice. Edmund jumped, a hand flying to his sword hilt, crouched over his pack, then got a proper look at his surprise guest and relaxed with a slight glower. He too stuck his wrist under Edmund's nose, but it did not bear a tattoo. Instead, the shape of the dagger was shaved into his fur.

"Any luck?"

"Well, we finally caught up with the Dryad gossip circles."

"And?"

"And he's definitely been through the southern woods. With Queen Lucy."

There was a moment of taut silence.

"_And?_"

"And... He left them a day or two ago. Depending on how fast he's moving, he could already be in the foothills of the mountains. He's moving much faster than you."

This time, Edmund made no attempt to conceal his frustration, and smashed a fist into the earth at his feet with a small explosion of expletives. The Weasel danced calmly out of the way. Edmund took a couple of deep breaths, then looked back up at the Weasel, who was watching him expectantly.

"How many contacts do we have in Archenland?"

"Archenland is quite a broad specification, sire."

Edmund ground his teeth.

"Fine. How many contacts do we have _in the region of the Calormene camp east of Anvard near the Winding Arrow River?"_

"Depends how far south we're talking."

Edmund could have throttled him.

"South of Stormness Head and north of Fletch Island in the river. How many contacts?!"

"I'm...not sure, sire. There's not much there but farmland and villages."

"Yes, and evidently, a bloody great Calormene camp preparing to make war on Archenland and Narnia! That's where they'll take her! I want it watched from every side, I don't care who by, as long as they're reporting to us and only us!"

"... Yes, sire."

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><p>Peter's troops were, to say the least, surprised when Queen Susan's armed guard rode off without her, and more surprised still when they returned later that night with a soldier's pack, a bow, a shining white quiver stuffed with red-fletched arrows, assorted daggers and a lady's mail shirt and leather cuirass. Susan quickly shed her expensive furs and winter riding habit in the privacy of the copse she had visited earlier, with Peter standing guard, and emerged dressed as a warrior. When she strode back into the camp at Peter's side, the troops marvelled at her apparent transformation from delicate Queen to experienced soldier. She blew out a breath and flicked her short hair out of her eyes, grinning at Peter.<p>

"It's been much too long since I last did this."

Rook, if it was possible, was even more bowled over by this than he had been by his first meeting with Queen Susan.

"You mean she's coming with us? Really? She's staying?"

"That's right, Rook."

"But might she get hurt? I mean, I bet she can fight really well, but she's a lady! And I didn't think Queens liked dirt very much, and we're all sweaty and messy here-"

Peter smiled patiently at Rook. "Su's not staying because she likes dirt, lad. She wants to help us fight the Calormenes."

Rook sighed passionately. "She's _perfect." _

Peter almost choked on trying not to laugh as Rook's face began burning when Susan came over to put her bedroll right next to Peter's. She had insisted that no special arrangements be made for her, embarrassed at the thought that the only proper tent in the camp would be for her, and so she had opted to bed down with her brother as she had done on previous adventures.

"Y-Your Majesty," Rook trembled, blushing. "Are you sure you'll be all right in the battles? Th-they make me a bit nervous, and I would h-hate for you to be scared."

Susan smiled kindly at him, sitting down on her bedroll. "I've been in quite a few battles, Rook, though not nearly as many as Peter." She nodded at her brother as he flopped theatrically onto the ground, half on Susan's bedroll, and half on his own. "But they make me nervous too. I'm relying on you to be there to make sure I'm not scared," she said, dropping her voice to a confidential whisper and leaning in close to Rook, whose face looked as though one could fry an egg on it. He leapt up and dragged his bedroll over so that he was on Susan's other side, and she was sandwiched between Peter and Rook.

"Don't worry, Your Majesty! I'll make sure nothing bad happens to you," he declared boldly, and then glanced over at Peter, uncertain. "Well, Peter and I will. Right, Peter?"

"Absolutely," Peter yawned.

Susan snuggled down between them, smiling again at the prospect of sleeping under the stars once more for the first time in years.

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><p><strong>AN: **I know it says in HHB that Susan doesn't like fighting and doesn't ride to the wars, but she must have helped with _some, _or what would the point be in giving her a bow? Besides, she wants to look for Lucy :) . Thanks for reading, reviews are much appreciated!


	18. Chapter 18

**A/N: **My patient readers, I must apologise profusely for the long wait for this chapter. My life has taken a turn for the horrifically complicated and I'm afraid I could not have gotten it out any sooner, and it still isn't coming easily. Thank you for your patience, I hope you enjoy the chapter.

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><p>What followed was a period of dire frustration. Peter and Susan made swift progress south past the Fords of Beruna and through the woods where the Dancing Lawn lay, heading for the mountain range that separated Narnia from Archenland, but no matter how quickly they moved Brighend was determined that they should move faster, and Peter and Susan, anxious for Lucy, complied. Edmund continued to fruitlessly scour the mountains for Lucy, led down scores of false trails and fake camp remains. Once or twice a glimpse was caught of Galen by an Eagle or Hawk or another flying Watch member, but by the time Edmund and his forces arrived, they were long gone.<p>

* * *

><p>Lucy liked the eastern plains in Archenland. They were friendly and open, full of genial farmers and bustling villages, although Galen in his constant and obsessive fear of detection refused to enter any of them lest Lucy should be recognised. They travelled most often at night, so that the beautiful landscape was shrouded in darkness and all Lucy could see was empty fields and closed shutters. The houses were often long and low to protect against the occasional wild wind that screamed in from the ocean, and were built of a sturdy sandy brick that glowed in the sun.<p>

They had just hurried secretively through a small collection of these houses when Lucy saw in the near distance a collection of blazing orange torches, far too bright in the blackness of the night, making her wince and recoil. Galen grasped the back of her neck and forced her to stare into them.

"There," he rasped into her ear. "There it is. Your brothers and sister can't have cared that much, can they? Or your dear Lion. None of them have come to rescue you, have they? Now you will be Mukil Tarkhaan's pet."

He hustled her forward, his steps eager. Before long she could see the exotic patterns on the cloth of some of the tents, and then they were walking through crowds of leering Calormenes, deeper and deeper into the camp, this little piece of Calormen. She felt suffocated by the fragrance of lush fruits and incense and warm, dusty nights that hung about the place, that she might have enjoyed if she had been a guest and not a prisoner, but as it was, it felt as if Galen was pulling her further and further away from Narnia, burying her among the reed mats and flamboyant cloths so that she would never be found.

The journey through the camp was a haze of strange faces and unfriendly leers. Before long, they had arrived at a tent that was larger and richer than any she had yet seen. In its doorway stood a huge Calormene man, who reminded Lucy of one of the feral cats she had seen in the mountains, steel-muscled and bloodthirsty. Cold slipped down her spine; here was a man who would offer her no mercy. His lips curled upwards into a twisted smile, and she caught a glimpse of wicked golden teeth, sharpened into evil points.

"So," he said loudly, in a voice of satisfaction. "Here is Narnia's Darling."

Lucy glared up at him, determined to remain defiant in the face of his mockery.

"Worth so little to her Lion he let her fall into our hands. Practically gave you away. Why do you not bow before me?"

Galen immediately grasped her arms and tried to pull her to the ground, where he himself had been prostrating, but she shook him off crossly.

"Aslan named me a Queen of Narnia," she snapped. "My title exceeds yours, Tarkhaan, if you will insist on something so petty. I will not bow."

"Such fire!" he exclaimed with pleasure, and Lucy burned with anger. Before she could register his movements, he had dealt her a swift blow to the stomach with his granite fist, and she doubled over, wheezing. Two men leapt forwards and shoved her to her knees at the Tarkhaan's feet.

"I am Mukil Tarkhaan," he announced grandly over her head. "All will bow before me in these barbaric northern countries." He lowered his eyes to her and addressed her superciliously. "You will not be harmed, particularly. I will use you as a bargaining tool against your brothers, who I've heard are after you. Apparently, there is nothing the royal house of Narnia love so much as their own. You will prove useful, I expect."

He flapped his hand dismissively, to show that the conversation was over. The same rough men who had forced her to kneel earlier took hold of her arms once again and hauled her up, dragging her over to a small, ragged tent, where they bound her to a post and left her for the night.

* * *

><p>Edmund squinted through the blackness, his face showing the confusion echoed by his troops, who were muttering uncertainly.<p>

There were too many lights. They were not yet on the Archenlandish plains, so it could not have been the Calormene camp. And here, in the jagged, cramped mountain passages, what other settlement could there possibly be? Tentatively, he sent out a few scouts. When they returned, jovial, not bothering with stealth but crashing happily through the heather, his question was answered.

"Narnians, sire! It's King Peter and Queen Susan! They're out looking for Queen Lucy, too! And King Peter says you'd better get over there this instant."

Edmund complied cheerfully, barely stopping to snatch up his pack and give the order for them to join up their camp with the other Narnians'. His fading hope was suddenly bright and new, full of fresh conviction. Peter was alive, and Susan was here, and between the three of them, there was no way Lucy could remain unfound.

It did not take him long to arrive in the other camp. It was far more worn out than his own, the men looked wearier and dirtier, and there were many bearing the crest of Archenland whom he did not know. He strode quickly through the camp, nodding acknowledgements to the soldiers who called his name joyfully. It seemed that they were in as much need of new resolve as he, and perhaps the joining of forces could give them all what they needed.

Peter, however, was nowhere to be found, and Susan remained similarly elusive. In the end, he began to ask around, but few soldiers seemed to know, or were more keen on pouring him wine and sharing a joke. He was just turning away from a grinning, ruddy-faced Faun, exasperated, when he turned right into a broad, solid chest. He was instantly caught up in the arms of the man and embraced so hard it hurt, the breath squeezed out of his lungs.

"I'm right here, you idiot," came a gloriously familiar and suspiciously choked voice above his head. As Edmund returned Peter's embrace fiercely, burying his face in his brother's neck, a firm kiss was pressed into his hair and someone else bounded up behind him, flinging their arms around him so that he was sandwiched comfortably between the two. The new addition to their huddle was feminine, shorter than he and softer.

"Edmund!"

There was a delighted exclamation from Susan, who stretched up to kiss the back of his neck briefly. They stood like that for some time, before separating and glancing around in slight embarrassment at the soldiers who had witnessed their display. Peter's hand stayed on his shoulder, and he tossed a tender smile across at Edmund.

"All right, Ed?"

"Better than before. You?"

"Same."

For now, that was all either of them needed to hear. Someone shyly cleared their throat, breaking the moment of sibling intimacy. Edmund turned, half glaring at the interrupter, to see a gangly, sandy-haired boy stood before them, smiling slightly awkwardly. Peter grinned, and clapped his free hand down on the boy's shoulder.

"Ed, meet Rook, my new page."

Edmund relaxed, and returned the boy's smile. He was very young, not more than thirteen. He watched as Rook turned a hopeful gaze on Peter, jiggling up and down in excitement.

"Peter, sir, is this-"

"Rook, meet my little brother, King Edmund the Just."

Edmund scowled playfully at Peter. "Little nothing!"

Peter just laughed.

* * *

><p>King Edmund was not really what Rook had been expecting. If someone had asked him what he had been expecting, he couldn't have told them, it was just not someone like the man whom he had met. King Edmund had surprised him, though not in a bad way, his dark eyes glittering with intelligence and a sly wit, his strength wiry and sinewy rather than the powerful build of his brother, his skin as white as Queen Susan's. If he was honest, King Edmund scared him a little.<p>

Rook gazed down at them, slightly wistfully. It was difficult now for him to sleep next to King Peter or even Queen Susan, because the three siblings all slept together in a confused tangle of blankets, bedrolls and limbs, lying under and on top of and squashed up against each other like a litter of new puppies. Giving a resigned sigh, he settled down on the other side of their fire. Asleep, the three of them looked very young to him.

With morning came a flurry of activity. They had been informed by the Watch that Queen Lucy was indeed being held at the Calormene camp, so Edmund and Peter, with the odd interjection from Susan, had decided to line up their troops on the Archenlandish plains and fight it out there. With the mountains at their back, they had the higher ground, a clear advantage. Word had been sent to King Lune and the hope was that he would come to aid them, and the Calormenes could be driven away if not that day, then at the very least tomorrow.

There was little fear in the camp. It was hard for anything to smother the relief many soldiers felt at the foreseeable end of their arduous campaign and some of them, Edmund and Peter included, began to feel the itching thrill of anticipation, of battle fever. Susan checked each of her arrows meticulously and then went over Rook's armour and all of his weapons with the same care, determined that he should come to no harm. The Calormenes were not known for mercy, not even on those barely a step out of childhood, and whatever happened, today the fields of Archenland would taste blood.

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><p><strong>AN: **I hope you enjoyed it, thank you for reading!


	19. Chapter 19

**A/N: **I am extremely sorry for not updating this in so long! School leaves no time for writing, and I just haven't been able to get much inspiration lately. But here is the next chapter-thank you so much for your patience!

* * *

><p>"What d'you reckon, Ed?"<p>

Edmund sniffed and squinted across the smooth battlefield at the threatening mass of Calormene forces, the Narnians and Archenlanders assembled, tense and silent in the still air, behind them. "It's bloody freezing, Peter. I reckon we need to rescue Lucy as soon as we can and finish this whole thing quickly."

Their armour gleamed in the frosty winter sunlight and next to them, Oreius stamped his hooves impatiently.

"I do not consider this waiting necessary, Majesties. The Calormenes will not wish to negotiate. They think their victory as good as won."

"Yes, well," Peter replied wearily, "If there is any chance that we could avoid a fight today, I'd take it."

"Rubbish, Peter!" Edmund snapped, irked. "We have to take our vengeance. We cannot allow them to think that they can simply kidnap one of our own and then have us give in to anything they demand in return!"

"I didn't say that I would give in to anything they demanded!" Peter snarled unexpectedly viciously, without looking at Edmund. "I said that I wanted to avoid a fight, and so would you if you'd been on campaign already for months, so don't be so bloody righteous about it! And I would like to spare my troops. I've asked far too much of them already. They've been to hell, but I know they'd do it again if I asked them to. We all would, for Lucy."

Edmund winced in the tight silence that followed, as Oreius pretended to be oblivious.

"You're right, Pete."

When Peter's chilly demeanour didn't thaw, he continued quietly.

"Sorry."

Peter relaxed and nodded his acceptance, a smile flitting tiredly across his face to assure Edmund that he was no longer angry, though he still did not look at his brother, preferring instead to survey the rolling stretch of grass before them that would soon be their battle ground. Edmund scrutinised him rigorously from the side, noticing how his brother's frame was drooped with exhaustion, the slight clench in his jaw that told him Peter was in pain, probably from injuries sustained in the north, and the grime from the hard campaign ingrained into his skin. He frowned. Peter was in no good shape to fight, and he was about to voice his concern when they noticed an unarmed Calormene herald with a ridiculously large moustache and dripping with gaudy golden jewellery trudging towards them.

"The esteemed Mukil Tarkhaan sends his greetings," he called breathlessly to them. "And requests that Peter the Magnificent come to parley with him on the matter of his hostage."

The two Kings glanced simultaneously towards the middle of the battlefield, where a dark, hulking figure flanked by guards gripped a pale slip of a girl in a filthy white nightdress.

"Lucy," Edmund breathed, and saw Peter's gaze dart to him for a second before he turned to address the portly messenger in one of his haughtiest High King voices.

"Very well. We shall parley with your master, and we shall have our honoured brother-King and our trusted General accompany us to offer their input."

"No, Your Magnificence." The messenger's voice was unctuous, but carried a sharp undertone.

"No?"

Peter cocked an imperious eyebrow at the messenger, drawing out his enquiry with a hint of threat, training a calm but intensely penetrating gaze on him. Rugged and battered as he was from his gruelling campaign and considerably taller than the Calormene, Edmund knew how intimidating Peter must have appeared to him then, and had to hide a grim smirk as he cowered a little.

"N-No. The most excellent Mukil Tarkhaan requests that the High King of Narnia parley with him alone...and unarmed."

Edmund watched his brother consider this, insides constricting with worry. After a moment, without breaking his stare into the herald's eyes, Peter brusquely unfastened his sword belt and thrust Rhindon into Edmund's chest, who clasped the scabbard strongly, glowering at the little man. His shield and a mean set of throwing daggers were given over to Oreius.

"I am ready. Take me to your master," Peter commanded mildly. As he strode out towards the middle of the battlefield after the herald, a slight limp still detectable in his gait, Edmund exchanged a tense look with Oreius.

* * *

><p>Susan watched from the higher ground above the battlefield, bow in hand, as a Narnian figure she recognised as Peter started out from the front rank towards the party of Calormenes in the centre of the battlefield. The wind whipped through her skirts and they flapped inconveniently around her legs and her short hair, as she was now unable to braid it as she always used to when going into battle, flew continuously into her face. Irritated, she snatched a lock out of her eyes and shoved it behind her ear. There was nothing worse for archery than having her eyes pricked at and her vision obstructed by her own hair. Rook, positioned next to her, shifted skittishly from foot to foot.<p>

"What's he doing, Your Majesty? Why is Peter going to talk to them?"

"It's called a 'parley,' Rook," Susan answered distractedly. "At least, that's what I think they're doing. It's where two opposing sides meet to discuss things, usually terms of an agreement. In this case, to negotiate with Queen Lucy, I imagine."

Rook's brow wrinkled in confusion. "Negotiate with Queen Lucy? I thought she was on our side."

"She is. She's a hostage. A bargaining chip, if you like. The Calormenes know we want her back desperately, so they'll try and get something from us in return for her."

"Oh." Rook sounded uncertain. "I thought we were going to fight a battle to get her back."

Susan turned to him to at last give him her full attention, and smiled ruefully at him. Rook trembled with adoration.

"We will, most likely. The Calormenes will ask for something that we cannot give, and so we will fight."

* * *

><p>"Greetings, High King!" boomed the colossal Calormene that Peter took to be Mukil Tarkhaan. He could feel Lucy's gaze on him, burning him with all the fire of the sun, but he knew that if he looked at her what was left of his clear-headed reason would be swallowed by a blistering rage against any who dared to harm her and he risked doing something rash.<p>

"Greetings, Mukil Tarkhaan," Peter reciprocated quietly, but matching his enemy in power.

"To business, then! I have your girl," the Tarkhaan gloated, shaking the ragged, pale form whose wrist was clamped in his meaty fist, like a fragile, crumpled autumn leaf. A single twist of that fist could snap Lucy's thin wrist with monstrous ease. "Your Valiant Queen. For her return to you, I demand that all your soldiers lay down their weapons!"

"You demand that which we cannot give, Tarkhaan. You demand that we allow you to invade Archenland, a foothold from which you may take Narnia. You may as well have asked for my crown and King Lune's to be laid at your feet."

"Precisely, King," Mukil sneered. "Will you allow your precious little Queen to die for your obstinacy? She could, you know. It would be so _easy_."

Releasing Lucy's wrist, he snatched up a handful of her tangled hair and wrenched her head back so that the white stretch of her neck was exposed. One of his guards handed him a slender dagger, which he settled on Lucy's neck. She trembled to feel the cold line. Even a hint of pressure, and her blood would be spilt. Aslan, she thought. Aslan.

If she looked down her nose, she could just about see Peter. His face was schooled into blankness and he had yet to even look at her. She had seen his limp as he had approached them and bloodied bandages peeked out from under plates of dented armour. He carried with him a thick air of uncharacteristic defeat. Even if she hadn't been able to read the most minute details of his body language and facial expressions, it was clear that he was injured and in pain. Lucy frowned slightly, feeling curiously calm despite the blade at her neck. This wasn't like Peter, he didn't behave this way. She had known him to walk miles on a broken leg with barely a wince. He had been to the brink of starvation without the slightest complaint. Peter carried on until he collapsed, it was one of the fundamentals of his character, and the cause of much frustration on the part of his siblings. Yet here he was, making his weakness apparent in front of one of those to whom he was always most impenetrable, their enemies. It was then that she caught it-the tiny narrowing of his eyes, the flash of calculation. Suddenly, she did not feel quite so frightened of the Tarkhaan or disorientated by Peter's behaviour. Peter, she reminded herself, though he did not have Edmund's deviousness, was far from blunderingly open.

"Such a breakable little girl," the Tarkhaan purred at Peter. "One wonders at her title. Mind, I would consider yours a little inappropriate also, King." His eyes swept disdainfully over Peter's filthy skin and battered armour. "So, what say you? You can have your girl if your soldiers lay down their arms and let us conquer Archenland and Narnia, or you can let her die, and my men will kill every last one of you, and I will take the heads of the four Golden Monarchs of Narnia to hang from the battlements at Cair Paravel."

Mukil pressed the blade closer against her neck, so that a stinging line was cut into Lucy's throat. She gasped, surprised, despite the fact that she had been expecting this. She felt her blood run in a disgustingly hot, thick trickle down her neck.

"Look, King! _Look!"_ Peter looked, following the slow red trail with his eyes, hypnotised by its steady progression down to Lucy's white collarbones. Her blood-_his _blood-shone in the winter sun, dulling and congealing quickly. Suddenly, with a sharp snap of clarity, he knew his precise course of action.

Peter seemed to crumple in on himself, the weight of the surety of his defeat crushing his seeming bravado. "I see that I have no choice," he murmured, soft and pathetic. "We cannot win here."

With that, he turned to the Narnian and Archenlandish troops and signalled for them to drop their weapons.

On the front line, Edmund let Rhindon clatter to the ground and bitterly flung his own blade down beside it, barely able to believe that Peter had conceded to this. Oreius dropped his broadsword with an aggravated grunt, and the soldiers behind them too let their weapons go with what seemed to be a collective sigh of angry disappointment.

"Our bargain?" Peter said, his voice barely more than a hopeful whisper.

The Tarkhaan laughed nastily, and planted an enormous hand between Lucy's shoulder blades and shoved her towards Peter. She tripped, and strong hands snatched her out of her fall. In a moment she was pressed against Peter, and he took a moment just to clasp her tightly to him. Then he looked up at the Tarkhaan, and his countenance suddenly altered like a change in the weather, from a miserable drizzle to rumbling, furious storm clouds. Gone was his stoop and air of defeat, or any indication of pain. His eyes were cold and clear as he abruptly gave a signal to the troops behind him.

Confused, they glanced at one another uncertainly. This was an unfamiliar signal and there was a flash of panic among them as no one seemed to know what the High King had commanded. But on the hill, Susan's eyes widened at the flutter of Peter's fingers, a movement she knew well. Faster than she could think, an arrow was on her string and she took aim coolly under Rook's bewildered gaze. She breathed in, and out again, settling her aim, then let her string loose and red feathers brushed past her cheek.

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><p><strong>AN: **Thank you for reading, and apologies again for the wait! Your comments would be much appreciated.


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